The joys of Michigan’s Pity Sex are in the details; the quartet’s ostensibly easy-to-tag emo/indie template is in fact strewn with shards of self-examining shoegaze and down-tempo punk. Debut album Feast of Love, released in 2013, kicks off like melancholy, melodic early Weezer (“Wind Up”), but the record’s guitar tones soon get Smashing Pumpkins–gritty and Brennan Greaves’ lurking vocals become downright maudlin (“Sedated”). Pity Sex’s all-trumping curve ball is when second singing guitarist Britty Drake chimes in, her glacial timbre transforming the band from bedroom introspection to outdoorsy, borderline folksy escapism (“Hollow Body”). And when Greaves and Drake trade off, as on the relatively boisterous “Drown Me Out,” Pity Sex truly becomes its own animal — curled-up and comfy, but with massive, serrated teeth.

Sun., Jan. 4, 8 p.m., 2015
(Expired: 01/04/15)

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