Loverboy adore us some in your face queer punk chutzpah and Fallon Gold falls hard for a master of the art form: Ellen Kempner and Palehound.

Palehound is one of those gigs that hits you hard and you know it’s going to stay with you long, long after the last reverb has pulsed its way through your body. The mass energy in the room tells you everyone is under the same gorgeous spell and without words we collectively acknowledge that we have shared something very special.

Palehound on stage are a trio but for the album, Dry Food, it’s Ellen Kempner’s soul laid bare and this exceptionally gifted 21 year old queer Bostonian plays everything on the record except for the drums. We are SMITTEN, kittens. The songs from Dry Food are about a relationship breakdown and ensuing emotional fall out. Kempner assures us that she’s ‘alright now. I have a great girlfriend’. But, she informs us, her 17 year old sister has just been dumped by an asshole boy and Ellen requests that we all shout ‘I Love You Julia’ so that she can send the video of it to her heartbroken little sister. This is the shit, right? As if she hadn’t totally and completely won our hearts already with her music and compelling stage presence.

Ellen tells us that this is Palehound’s first London gig and a literal dream come true for her. She would wear union jack tee shirts as a kid because she wanted so much to be a British punk. She thanks us several times for coming and those thanks are genuine. We, the audience, shout our thanks and love back to her and we feel it.

Palehound is its own musical animal but we can’t help but be reminded of the best of rip your heart out moody Riot grrrl and grunge edged with hold your breath classic rock and all this is gilded with dreamy hypnosis. Every song is exposed nerve perfection.

There is so much beauty on that weirdo stage of The Shacklewell Arms, both visually and musically. Kempner’s guitar is magnificently precise yet raw in the same way her vocals are controlled yet rip through you with subtle, quiet emotion. David ‘Doov’ Khoshtinat strums, bends and literally punches his bass and it’s one of the sexiest things Loverboy has ever seen on a stage. Jesse Weiss plays the drums with such enthusiasm and power he could be the lovechild of Keith Moon and Animal. Again the precision, the pow, the intricacy of his playing is a thing of exquisite beauty. A Palehound gig isn’t just a performance it’s an experience of gorgeous, raw, achingly nuanced wonder.

Palehound’s tour continues throughout the UK and Europe. Dry Food is out today on Heavenly Recordings and available from Rough Trade.

Image: Luis Ruiz