Demystified Menace From Thin White Rope

Thin White Rope might be the best American guitar band you’ve never heard of. On Friday, the Davis-based quartet’s Western dread ‘n’ roll slithered through a sparsely populated Myron’s Ballroom with some of the spookiest twin-guitar exchanges heard since the heyday of Television.

On record, Guy Kyser’s tremulous, washed-in-Boraxo gargle creates a sublime air of paranoia suited to his lyrical ramble through the underworld of American mythology. At Myron’s, Kyser’s utter normalcy demystified the menace, apart from a nervous shudder or two. That left the Rope to hang its distinctive style on delicate, spectral, minor-mode noodlings that exploded into scorching, sustained tones.