La Dispute, Sweet Pill, Pictoria Vark [outside]
It’s rare for La Dispute vocalist Jordan Dreyer to pause in one of his blistering emo-punk monologues, unless there are dire grammatical concerns afoot. Halfway through the opening track to Wildlife – the beloved 2011 sophomore effort his band will be performing at Mohawk in full – Dreyer takes a break from addressing a departed friend to wonder out loud whether he’s just deployed the correct form of past tense. Thankfully, nobody gives Dreyer time to find an answer. The throbbing hardcore pulse slows for only a second. A decade later, that’s still La Dispute: making beautiful music out of the tension between poetic eloquence and punk passion.
—2859246
— Julian Towers
