On The List :: Conveyor @ Glasslands [8.23.12]

Brooklyn's Conveyor was the most verifiable real thing that took the stage at Glasslands this Wednesday evening. Surrounded by cloth flowers of the same vintage as the venue's famous fabric cloud backdrop, the band was further shrouded by a different non-textile obfuscation. The cloud machine below the stage, the one that trades CO2 for fake fog - and not in a metaphorical Cuckoo's Nest sense, this is real fake fog - began belching out its sorry product. It covered Conveyor in a second fake cloud, one around and one behind, fake flowers to stage left and stage right, making the band easily the most intentional object on stage. They had also asked Bill Murray to be their merch guy, a joke that sort of wasn't a joke. This was appropriate for a homecoming show, a very real return for a band who has been out on the road behind their very good, self-titled debut record.

The show was something of a high-wire act: two, three, four and sometimes, five part harmonies hung above sparse and occasionally explosive arrangements. Sounding a bit like Grizzly Bear playing Wolf Parade cuts, and this isn't even entirely fair because Grizzly Bear is about to rapidly redefine their legacy and the better parallel is ARMS, Conveyor opened with "Short Hair," a song about girls with angular hair cuts and bad attitudes. Playing mostly songs from their debut record, the band loaded the back half of the set with, "Mom Talk," "Mukraker," and "Right Sleep" in quick succession, each showcasing a penchant for delicate arrangements and erupting interludes. It was the central lyric of "Mom Talk," the explanatory, "I was away," that soared out over an expectant crowd. It was, after all, a show all about returns.