MUSIC

-- Andrew Lindemann Malone

¡Forward, Russia!

Playing the final show of its debut American tour at the Black Cat on Saturday, ¡Forward, Russia! danced on the divide between abandon and calculation. The four musicians wore identical T-shirts emblazoned with the twin exclamation points, one upside down, of the British punk-funk band's logo. The three male members also sported scraggly, if not quite matching, beards. Yet the group played with such force that it blew past its gimmickry (which includes numbering rather than naming its songs).

Although singer Tom Woodhead occasionally contributed some primitive synth bits, the music consisted principally of a walloping rhythm section and a series of trebly, precarious guitar riffs. The vocalist twisted himself into corkscrew postures, often with one arm flapping above his head -- and sometimes looked as if he just might choke himself with that microphone cord.

But then, strangulation is one of the band's musical motifs: Woodhead's voice and Whiskas's guitar sounded thin and stressed, as if grasping for a hold amid the implacable rhythms. On their concluding vocal duet, drummer Katie Nicholls was rather more serene than Woodhead, but the show ended with a vote for anarchy. The musicians beckoned several pals onstage to bash at the drum kit, and concluded when Whiskas hung his guitar from a pipe over the stage, leaving it to howl as the Russians retreated.

Second-billed Snowden had a similar lineup to the headliner, although singer Jordan Jeffares played some guitar, and he and bassist Corinne Lee dabbled in synth. The empty spaces of such songs as "Anti Anti" showed the Atlanta quartet's debt to dub, and the rumbling guitar breaks suggested Fugazi, a band whose influence is less obvious on Snowden's recent album. These are worthy sources, and Snowden assembled a lively racket from them. Yet for all its vigor, the band never quite reached the peak it aimed for.

-- Mark Jenkins