Lip Critic and Friends Spin Heavy, Heady Tales at The ’58

The rain was relentless on Saturday afternoon, giving the revelers at East Nashville’s annual Tomato Art Fest a cold shower. Sodden but undeterred, a collection of local weirdos tramped up Gallatin Pike to The ’58 (with a capacity of 225, it’s the middle-sized of Eastside Bowl’s three show spaces) to finish out their night with some New York-style electro-punk mayhem. Music City’s Impediment and Soot joined Brooklyn digital hardcore standouts Lip Critic for the Nashville stop on their Theft Destiny Tour, turning the glass-walled room into a sweaty little Crock-Pot of distortion, howling and borderline hazardous mosh pits.

Impediment hit the stage first, offering a brief moment of indie-rock calm before the hardcore storm. Singer-guitarist Happy Haugen, guitarist Jackson Berra and bassist Lawrence Rogers tuned up their instruments in sync, almost a part of the show itself, before diving with drummer Sean Booz into their beloved fuzzy “twangle rock” jams. Between songs, Haugen hastily shoved his glasses back up the bridge of his nose and shared anecdotes about shepherd’s pie and Steve Harvey, while Rogers pulled wildly emotive faces and sang along to every song they played. The quartet blasted through their short catalog, stirring the crowd during fan favorite “All the Time!” and even throwing in a punk-steeped, Superchunk-schooled cover of The Clean’s “Anything Could Happen.” 

Post-hardcore noise rockers Soot went next, with frontman Micah Mathewson wasting no time launching into the stage antics he’s known for. Minutes into the set, he hopped off the stage and backed up through the center of the crowd, stirring up a mosh pit in his wake. The middle of the room became a blur of sweaty bodies as Crocs-wearers dodged an onslaught of Doc Martens. Moments later, Mathewson handed a miniature mixing board to someone in the crowd, giving them full control of the distortion and other effects. A little later, Mathewson singled out the same fan and handed off his guitar. They nailed the subdued melody of “Hands,” earning an earnest forehead kiss from the singer. After blazing through their signature gnarly, snarly, reverb-heavy tunes, the group wrapped by teasing a new record with an unreleased song called “The Straw.”

A short while later, Lip Critic kicked off their set with the brain-melting opening yowl of “Yard Sale (230 Take),” a song near the end of their new album Theft World. The project takes the term “concept album” to unexpected dimensions. During the band’s 2024 tour, frontman Bret Kaser was a victim of identity theft. An obsessed fan (whose purchases included everything the band had released so far on Bandcamp) eventually came forward as the culprit, claiming to have decoded hidden messages in Lip Critic’s music. The group sat down for an extended interview with the admitted perpetrator, whose story inspired Theft World in ways the band has so far chosen not to fully explain.

Lip Critic powered through nearly all of Theft World while sprinkling in favorites from its predecessor Hex Dealer. Minutes into the set, during the lengthy chorus of “Jackpot,” Kaser ordered the crowd to get moving.

“Now Nashville, Tennessee, we came here tonight for one reason and one reason alone,” Kaser screamed. “And that reason is to shake some ass in this room tonight. I want to see you shake what you got, motherfuckers.”

Though they recorded as a trio, the group is touring as a hard-charging quartet. Mikey Sandvig rocked out on his drum kit completely barefoot, while Connor Kleitz contemplatively paced back and forth, seeming to channel his entire being into running the production console that fired off samples and controlled effects. During the harsh and thunderous “Sermon,” Kaser took a page from Mathewson’s playbook, hopping off the stage to rush the middle of the crowd. He leaped back and commanded the crowd to spin, sending the circle pit into overdrive as the beat kicked in. 

Between songs, Kaser stopped to shout out Soot, exclaiming how lucky Tennessee is to have them. He also thanked Impediment and joked about his envy of the band.

“Beautiful group of people, handsome as fuck as well,” Kaser said. “It sucks to play after them — we look like we’re Claymation or some shit. I look like a Coraline side character in this bitch.”

The show drew toward its close and Lip Critic kicked the energy back up with familiar favorite “Milky Max.” Kaser handed off his mic to a fan for the chorus, which allowed him to trade places for a few moments with the band’s other drummer Danny Eberle. As onlookers recorded video of the undulating circle pit from the other side of the room’s glass doors, Lip Critic ended the show with Theft World’s frantic closer “200 Bottles on Eviction.” Among the hijinks, Kleitz lifted two speakers like dumbbells, which felt just about right given the feats of strength characterizing the whole gig.

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