I Never Meant It to be Like This, the debut release by Seattle band Cumulus, is the audio equivalent of your most wide-eyed pal grabbing you by the arm and dragging you through crowded city streets on an extra-heady night while you and everyone else treading the pavement make up memories as you go along.
It’s a wonderful batch of intimate yet bright pop songs brimming with insidious, stick-in-your-skull hooks. Plenty of familiar elements (mutated girl-group melodies a la the Dum Dum Girls or Best Coast, squalls of shoegazer guitar texture) gallop and swirl around the mix, but Alexandra Niedzialkowski’s winsome voice and the band’s energetic delivery make the whole of their music much more than the sum of its parts.
That loose-limbed spirit bounced around Cumulus’s record release show at Neumos Friday night. The band may have just signed to Chris Walla’s high-profile Trans- Records imprint, but the show felt more like a house party than the opening salvo of a band fixing to conquer the world.
Like any good house party, unexpected treats awaited those who arrived early. Sundries have only committed seven songs to posterity since their formation two years ago, but they staked out a distinctive and beguiling sound with their opening set — clattering art rock anchored by lead singer Sadie Ava’s rich, strange, soulful trill of a voice. And Kithkin, the evening’s thundering middle-slotters, proved that some bands always deliver the goods no matter how many times you’ve seen ‘em live.
Cumulus followed up these very impressive warm-up acts by being resolutely, wonderfully themselves. Niedzialkowski is about the shyest frontwoman on the planet, with a soft-spoken sweetness belying an assured songwriting voice that can find the universal in the deeply personal, and that modest exterior made her bandmates wonderful foils for delivering those songs Friday. Bassist Leah Julius drove home upbeat tracks like “Hey Love” and “End of the World” with a muscular and rocking bottom end, while Lance Umble’s guitars lent dense textures to the hummable melodies.
In the end, it was Niedzialowski’s quiet charm and astonished delight at the crowd’s enthusiasm that capped the night. “That was pretty fun,” she gushed after the audience’s boisterous appreciation ushered her back for a fragile, gorgeous encore on “Night Swimming.” Yeah, Alexandra, it was.
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