"The kids at Rickshaw Stop on Wednesday night do not remember. They have X's drawn in Sharpie on the backs of their hands. But they dress like they were there: cargo shorts, weird hats, long-sleeves under short-sleeves. One, whose bleached-blond curls bob violently with the slightest twitch of his head, jerks his body to the music like his life depends on it."
"These are all fans of After, a two-piece band from Los Angeles playing a sold-out show. After, as a band, is sort of like a blender for those cultural reference points, all of the turn-of-the-millenium detritus that couldn't stay locked away in the Macintosh trash bin. If you tried to jam an Alanis Morissette CD into a Sega Dreamcast, you'd probably hear something like After playing out of your CRT TV."
"Without a drummer, the band's live show is missing a bit of oomph. On the stage, Dorsey's vocals, which are truly angelic, carry the performance. If she wanted to, she could be the type of non-indie pop star who plays arenas. At a song's climax, she curls her voice into a high, aching whine like the singer of the Cranberries."
A sold-out crowd at Rickshaw Stop features a youthful audience dressed in turn-of-the-millennium fashion, many with X's marked on their hands. After is a two-piece Los Angeles band combining guitar, sparkly electronics and angelic vocals to evoke early-2000s cultural detritus. The band projects its name in Matrix/Twilight–style font and leans into nostalgic visual and sonic references. The live set lacks a drummer, which reduces some physical impact, but Justine Dorsey's vocal range and aching high notes carry climaxes with Cranberries-like intensity. Guitarist Graham Epstein plays with monitor headphones over a trucker hat while audience members film on devices like a Nintendo 3DS. Dorsey and Epstein met on Hinge.
Read at SFGATE
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