Disq at Crystal Ballroom, 9/29

It’s a comfortably chilly Sunday night, and there’s a thirty minute walk awaiting me as I venture from my house to the evening’s venue. It always brings me a bit of calm to be able to head to a show by foot: I’m soothed by the setting sun and the swelling anticipation, which coalesce amidst the quiet, side-street passage these travels entail. So, when I head inside the Crystal Ballroom to see what Hotline TNT, Disq, and Euphoria Again have in store for me, I’m already at peace with whatever I’m bound to witness. Among my favorite spaces in the Greater Boston area, the chandelier-populated, elegant event space isn’t quite filled to the brim, but a noticeable buzz is emanating from the gathered attendees. I settle in along the wall near the left side of the stage before most of the night’s audience has arrived, biding my time by fiddling with my camera. 

While I aimlessly mess around with the settings, my mind slowly turns to the bill in question. I am well-acquainted with all three projects involved—I say projects because Hotline TNT and Euphoria Again have always principally been the creative outlets of Will Anderson and John Klein respectively, though Disq falls more truly in the “band” category. I’ve seen Hotline TNT before, but the lineup is constantly changing, so I avoid expecting anything in particular from them. Hearing Disq and Euphoria Again live for the first time was a particularly intriguing prospect, especially given the transformation in sound both have seen in recent releases. For Euphoria Again, that’s been a turn from washed-out, sluggish daze-rock toward refined twangy sensibilities. Disq, on the other hand, shifted out of rawer, louder indie rock roots to a more power-pop-inspired, light-melody-based style, interrupted by occasional bursts of unpredictable noise, like the screeching end to “Prize Contest Life” on 2022’s Desperately Imagining Somewhere Quiet. 

These contrasts and evolutions provided plenty to consider as I awaited Euphoria Again’s opening set, but as soon as “Mickey Shoots Up” swallowed the room, I felt all my anticipation disintegrate, immediately replaced by sheer wonder. Part of 2014’s The Mouse Rides On EP, a classic of the early-mid-2010s Philly indie, the track was a flawless entry-point to the night, a callback to Klein’s pre-sobriety days and the crushing noise that accompanied them. It then led to newer releases, including 2021’s Lifetime and some new bits from the soon-to-release Waiting On Time To Fly, coming out this November. Everything found its place over their half-hour or so on stage, and above relying on the hits of yesteryear, the set was an undeniable display of Klein’s talent as a songwriter, and the balance guiding him and his bandmates. The melancholic wryness central to Euphoria Again remains present even in the patient, gentler tracks of recent years, and I found it endearing to witness the persistence of that identity even as the songs, the sound, and the context in which the music has been born have changed.

From there, Disq followed, bringing a near-frenetic energy to the Ballroom as they charged through their setlist. The Madison, Wisconsin band took a leap from their 2016 Disq 1 EP when they signed to Saddle Creek and released their first full-length, Collector, in 2020: it’s evident the pressure of a larger imprint hasn’t dampened their aspirations, and the visible enthusiasm coloring their performance made it all the more enjoyable. Banter flowed between the five-piece as they moved through a selection of songs that showcased their array of influences, ranging from moments recalling the spiky riffs of Gang of Four to passages reminiscent of airier cuts in The Unicorns’ discography. No matter where a given track sat on that spectrum, the infectiously dynamic interplay between the band came together in a rowdy harmony that not only took sonic shape, but was evident as they were bouncing about the stage while looking to one another for cues. It has always been a staple of Disq’s music that they’re clearly enjoying themselves, even in studio recordings, and that was plain to see in a live setting.

The production of emphatic points of dissonance in the group’s renditions that Sunday night were the real highlight for me, bringing a frenzied ecstasy to a handful of their most theatrical songs. What I’m left to wonder, above all else, is where exactly Disq are destined to end up within the next couple of years; they made the label jump at such an early stage in their life as a group, and I hope they’ll continue to mess around in completely unpredictable ways, against the tide of what I’ve come to expect from big-imprint signings as time goes on.

Hotline TNT followed Disq’s barnburner of a set, and unsurprisingly with an equally loud batch of cuts. While their wall of sound wasn’t as loud as I’d previously heard it, that didn’t prevent them from carving out booming portions alongside the shiny melodies that so characteristically surface as Will Anderson’s vocal performance is joined by his bandmates in what I see as the signature lightness-within-worlds-of-noise that the group have worked to achieve since their first EPs. What’s really fascinating is the relative restraint they’ve taken on their most recent release, 2023’s Cartwheel, which could be said to eschew the legacy of the fast-paced, blown-out, perfectly messy tracks that I fell in love with, like “Country Mile,” “Lawyers in Love,” and the legendary album-opener “Had 2 Try,” off of 2021’s Nineteen In Love. It’s clear that the change we’ve seen was a recent one, but tracks like “If We Keep Hangin Out”—which I adore, by the way—certainly signaled that a layer of roughness would be stripped from the songs on Cartwheel. 

In the end, the songs on that album still have the essence of the band’s earlier ventures, but almost seem to condense the crushed-up guitars into digital bits as Anderson’s vocals take on a more front-facing role than ever before in their discography. It’s fascinating, and I’m still undecided on Cartwheel in spite of the excellence of moments like “Protocol,” “Maxine,” and “Spot Me 100.” While I miss the old days (and Anderson would certainly tell me to fuck off for saying that, he seems to hate talking or thinking about his time in the mythical group Weed or the boundlessly excellent Toner), Hotline TNT still sound lively as ever up close.