Show Review: Dollar Tree, Ophelia’s Drowning, Snowmen at Alphaville.
February 1st, 2025.
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“I'm Mister Icicle; I'm Mister Ten below.”
February 2nd, 2025
We’ve been busy as of late, deconstructing the rat trap and reconstructing it in our own image. A real roll of the dice. Last night we took a break from this misadventure to crawl down to Alphaville to see Dollar Tree, Ophelia’s Drowning, and Snowmen rock out. Outside was bitter cold, but inside were warm riffs and an enthusiastic crowd huddled around them. Here’s our notes from the evening:
Dollar Tree, a five piece with four guitars, opened with a noise groove. One guitar on rhythm, one on lead, and one on pure chaos. Vocals were a background afterthought, until the second song caught us off guard with rigorous shouting. The chugging forward momentum of this wall of sound had us referring to it as “surf-gaze”. Their overall genre was hard to pin down though, this money tree covered miles of sonic ground throughout their set.
Ophelia’s Drowning came all the way from Utah to spread their good word, the gospel of the power trio. Their guitarists whammy bar was sticking perpendicularly straight up, like a flagpole. Where most bands' lyrics get muffled and buried to an indecipherable degree, the clarity of every part of this three piece was refreshing. We were in lick city, both bass and guitar had strong command of their instruments and crawled up and down the fretboard. They had the most fun of anyone, playfully lamenting that you can connect with them on social media but “Remember, we have no music out whatsoever”.
Snowmen, another five piece, opened their set with a psycho-groove song. There were three guitars and a bass on stage but the sound of a synth pad was coming from somewhere, the sheer quantity of sound they wielded was overwhelming. These snowballs were loud and locked in, you know it’s serious business when the drummer is wearing construction grade earmuffs. The Snowmen’s violent squall of music caused the crowd to mosh, pogo, whoop, and cheer.
A three band bill flies by and just like that it was over. We didn’t even find time to order food from Lori-Jayne, Alphaville's in-house restaurant and best kept secret. As we skittered out the door to a 20 degree chill we thought about that arrogant rodent, Punxsutawny Phil, and what his “prediction” for the end of winter might be. Regardless, it was a great evening to catch Snowmen, Ophelia’s Drowning, and Dollar Tree. Connect with them on socials to catch their next show! Rrrat Pack, out.
| Keywords: | Alphaville | Dollar Tree | Ophelia's Drowning | Snowmen | Lori Jayne | New York City |
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