Pop Music Review : Boston’s Spore Shortens Its Jabberjaw Show

Spore, an obscure, Sonic Youth-inspired garage band from Boston, played a show on Sunday at Jabberjaw that indeed sounded as if the band were in a garage, the instruments simulating the thick revving of a rusty V8 and the players facing the kind of technical problems playing in a garage presents.

The quartet was an hour late after breaking down in the desert heat en route to L.A., and had to stop the set after only a few songs because the hastily assembled equipment was shocking the musicians.

The songs the band was able to play through between jolts of voltage conveyed its frustration in noisy outbursts of feedback and sporadic, unpredictable beats. Singer and bassist Ayal Naor traded screams with guitarist Mona Elliot, while the intensely loud music smothered their wails in masses of distortion.

An audience of 19 people stood along the small club’s chipped walls, leaving a huge space in the middle of the room for the clamor to bounce around in. The dense songs, which frequently bled into one another, stopped for quieter moments, then erupted again in messy discordance.

While it wasn’t the most incredible show to watch, at least it was stripped down and honest.