“It was heartening to see The New York Times give such prominent billing to this Bardo Pond show, held at Maspeth’s somewhat-remote but welcoming Knockdown Center this past weekend. If the use of the phrase “noise rock” to describe the band was reductive in extremis, it at least got at the notion that Bardo Pond shows are loud, distortion-drenched, hallucinatory affairs. But give a listen to Under the Pines, which the band played in full at this show to celebrate its release, and vocalist Isobel Sollenberger features more prominently for much of this journey, at least compared to past pairing with the Gibbons brothers and Clint Takeda’s guitar attack. A vocalist is almost always a critical component of a band’s sound, of course, but it feels like Sollenberger is a more confident and featured presence than she’s been at any time in their long career.”
–NYC Taper