Concert Review: Witches Exist, Trauma Ray, and Swirlies
Witches Exist, Trauma Ray, and Swirlies performed a sold-out show at The Parish on Nov. 1. Despite Witches Exist and Trauma Ray setting the stage for Swirlies to hit a home run with its performance, the classic ‘90s shoegaze band admittedly struggled with difficulties and a lack of sonic cohesion.
Written by Rachel Joy Thomas
Photos courtesy of Elina Carrasco
Swirlies doesn’t technically consider itself a “shoegaze” band, but the group remains well-affirmed in the echelon of shoegaze stardom. Like other resurgent acts such as Drop Nineteens and Slowdive, Swirlies rose in the ‘90s during peak noise collage with its 1992 album What To Do About Them. Many iterations of the band have existed, with lead singer Damon Tutunjian and Andy Bernick remaining the only founding members. Playing the Parish for Levitation was one of nine shows for the indie collective, and it sold out quickly. With two Texas bands supporting Swirlies, the concert immediately became the night two destination of Levitation.
Witches Exist donned the stage without hexes or broomsticks; rather, they arrived in Converse, t-shirts, and preppy layered sweater combinations to start its multifaceted set at 7:34 p.m. During its performance, the group’s post-punk intrigue swelled, hazily leaning into jangly shoegaze while adding brevity with frontman Jackson Baker’s chirpy vocals. The group played tracks off of the indie darling EP, Fertilizer, with fantasy horror synths, sulky guitar riffs, crackly snares, and occasionally bubbling electronics. Contrasting that came “Tacomex,” the Midwest-driven ballad with gripping guitar melodies overlaid with loop-pedal fuzz. Once band members packed up their equipment in duct taped-covered cases, Witches Exist made its way off of the stage to watch Trauma Ray and Swirlies from the sidelines.
Trauma Ray, Fort Worth's premier shoegaze band, sparked even more buzz when they stepped onto Parish’s stage, starting its set at 8:09 p.m. The group blew through “Ember,” a track off of the group’s debut album Chameleon, in a whirlwind sprint, with tracks immediately hitting maximum volume. Trauma Ray’s sirening sound matched well with ostentatious clamoring boys in baggy jeans who took to light moshing and some easy crowd-surfing in the middle of the Parish’s central crowd during “Bishop.” Dozens of people looked on from the balcony at the mosh pit, slightly bemused at the vivacious energy.
“Halley,” a crowd favorite, leaned into its metal overtones and darkened sound while balancing dreamy shoegaze. Lead singer Uriel Avila's deeply emotive refrain cut through the crowd like a knife, settling restless combat boots back to the floor. Wailing guitars echoed, shaking the ground and bouncing off of every wall and stairwell in a near world-ending finish. Continuing that dreamy overtone came ever-popular “Relay,” with awe-inspiring snare flams. Trauma Ray closed out their section on a sonic high with “Träumerei,” a groundbreaking track from the 2022 EP, Liftoff.
When Swirlies finally took to the stage, the crowd thrummed. Faces lit up with visible admiration and limbs swung out toward the air to address the ‘90s Shoegaze band. Excitement pinged and panged throughout the venue, with cheers erupting whenever band members Tutunjianand Elliot Malvas chucked their blue Fender Jaguars. The band barely addressed the enthusiastic crowd except for occasional small glances, extensively checking equipment and duct-taping a laptop to a small wooden table so it wouldn’t budge. Tutunjian, dressed in a simple green t-shirt and khaki pants, occasionally spoke to the front-of-house, asking politely for different sound outputs to increase or decrease as he occasionally twisted knobs on a monstrous pedalboard filled with fine tuning options.
Without much indication, Swirlies inaugurated its set at 9:37 p.m. with “Bell,” a cut off of Blonder Tongue Audio Baton. Jazzy, syncopated drum beats from Kevin Shea echoed nicely in the venue, but feedback overwhelmed vocals from Tutunjian almost instantaneously. The band’s overwhelming sound proved somewhat inundating despite fitting well with the pastiches of noise-pop, with the track introducing the band only somewhat positively.
Still wordless, the band dredged forward with “Vigilant Always,” where issues with the set truly began. After a false start and additional fine tuning, the group finally rolled into the track only to sound muddled and incomprehensible. Tutunjian’s vocals remained soft, overtaken by the enormous, crashing chuck of the band’s dual Jaguars. From almost all angles, lyrics drowned in effects, leaving the entire night with little registering linguistically.
Shea added technically virtuosic and incredible drum breakdowns with complex rudiments, which softened the cavernous feeling of sonic asymmetry. The noise-collage band teetered between two states of being — apt and intriguing experiential noise or overwhelming, cacophonous dissonance. Shea stabilized the group during “Tall Ships” to keep the resonance from veering into the abnormal, but the band slowly lost its sense of balance after the first few tracks.
The band progressed with even more false starts and excessively long interludes. At times, the audience couldn’t tell when a sound played out as a segue into one of the band’s tracks or a disharmonic interlude with little resemblance to the group’s studio recordings. Antsy feet clambered, with heads barely moving or swaying along to dissonant thunderings, as tracks continued playing like ambient distractions.
Tracks like “Jeremy Parker,” which featured Deborah Warfield vocals, reverberated without her registering. Unfortunately, the singer’s microphone dampened, further drowned by the rest of the band. Warfield’s refrain only shyly broke from the band’s sound during the chorus, making many realize that her microphone wasn’t off the entire time.
Squeaky duck noises à la “Drain You,” created an amusing and arguably balanced soundscape for “Pony.” The song’s slow build up combined with occasional ordinary moments helped ease the band toward much needed stability, feeling like a directional reprieve. It seemed like the band finally found a groove for a fleeting moment.
By 10:00 p.m., problems worsened. Some tracks needed two and a half minutes to begin, with deafening silence from the band as they adjusted different pedalboard settings. After one song took a whopping two minutes and 47 seconds to begin, Tutunjian finally addressed the crowd with “What? Do you think we’re professionals?” a lighthearted, only somewhat charismatic quip that felt more and more pervasive as time continued ticking forward ceaselessly — Tutunjian unfortunately had a stunning lack of stage presence that night, whispering to other band members before he ever addressed the crowd. He gave little to no introduction, rarely mentioning Levitation like openers Witches Exist or Trauma Ray.
The combination of the sonic discord and the tension between the band precipitated an atonal, bewildering experience. Instead of sounding lo-fi or deliberate, dissonant guitar strumming felt forced and drawn out, marring any sense of intrigue. The dissonance normally mastered by the group’s studio recordings felt unequivocally off-script during the performance.
Fans seemingly fed into the group’s awkward energy, becoming irate. As one person held their hands in a heart-shape at barricade for the band to see, a concertgoer bemoaned, “grow the fuck up!” causing a heated exchange between two audience members that eventually culminated in some fans leaving the venue.
The band closed off the night with “San Cristóbal de Las Casas,” and despite some improvement due to the song’s punchy sound, the overall lack of harmony between each group member contributed to the track feeling like bitter cough medicine.
For a meteoric band with decades of experience, Swirlies’ performance at the Parish proved unfortunate — a difficult set that may also echo as a miss to the band considering the variety of missteps taken. For Witches Exist and Trauma Ray, however, the Parish served as an apt space to explore interesting sonics, hardcore rumblings, post-punk intrigue, and the perfect mix of crowd surfing that reaffirmed Levitation for all its incredible moments.