Concert Review: System Noise at Iridium, NYC 5/2/09

Arguably their best show to date. System Noise is the kind of band you see and you can’t believe they’re not famous (as in headlining stadiums, anyway – they’re not exactly unknown in the New York underground). They’re even good-looking, as shallow as it is to admit, platinum-haired frontwoman Sarah Mucho spiky, sarcastic and amusing as always until she’d launch into a song and then it was all chills. In a long set that ran almost an hour and a half – the first in a new series of Saturday night rock shows at Iridium – they alternated between catchy, edgily danceable funk-rock and the scorchingly dark, noisy yet melodic guitar-fueled style intimated by their name.

Two minutes into their hook-driven, Talking Heads-inflected opener, Shitkickers, Mucho put everyone on notice that this would not be a sedate show: “I say, fuck it, we don’t have to take this shit!” They followed with an even catchier, far darker tune, Hair and Nails, that would set the tone for pretty much the rest of the night, a savagely offhand dismissal of shallowness, Mucho musing what would make her a “better woman,” the hair and nails of the title both something to accessorize and the only two parts of the body that keep growing after death. Another new one set a wicked, funky chromatic progression over a hip-hop beat, Mucho working her range for every sultry inflection in her arsenal.

Eventually popular cabaret crooner/pianist Michael Isaacs joined them onstage for a particularly glammy Elton John-style take on Lady Stardust by Bowie, then remained at the keys, his punchy rhythm giving the guitarist a chance to stretch out and wail through many of the wild lead lines on their albums that, with only one guitarist, they can’t incorporate into their live show. Another cover, Chicago’s 25 or 6 to 4 turned into a guitar firestorm, morphing at the end from a spot-on version of the solo out on the recording into a screaming, overtone-laden upper-register noisefest.

As usual, the big crowd-pleaser was the towering, epic anthem Daydreaming with its whispery intro, and long, eventually completely unhinged crescendo, a showcase for the wild wail Mucho developed on the cabaret circuit (where she still plays: she’s doing a show with Isaacs at Don’t Tell Mama on May 19). They encored with a particularly macabre, savagely redemptive version of the Carrie-inspired art-rock anthem Prom Night and then a blistering version of the fast, Iron Maiden-ish Good Enough to Eat, which their new bass player hadn’t had a chance to rehearse but tackled gamely and acquitted himself impressively. He’s a keeper – where their most recent bassist would get all garish and wanky if you gave him a second’s time in the spotlight, this guy is pure competence, smooth, in the pocket and tasteful. System Noise is back at their usual haunt the Delancey on June 16.