Joan Of Arc

Is it even possible to explain Joan Of Arc? At descriptive absolute zero, they're one woman and three men; the woman is called Melina Ausikatis, and she walks onto the stage at the Metropolis in Umbertide with a guitar slung over her shoulder that has no strings, just neck and body. Basically a bee with no stinger, or a bird that can't fly. Melina starts off a cappella, with the voice of a ten-year-old girl, much like the one drawn on the cover of their latest album ("1984"). Together with the drummer and bassist, they make three odd characters in a packed venue at eleven at night. The second is tall and washed-out, like his instrument; the first is short and sturdy, drumsticks in hand, sunglasses on, wearing a tight t-shirt. He looks like a Trump voter fresh out of an American action movie, though Joan of Arc are keen to set the record straight. The nice thing about being in Italy tonight is that they don't have to be in the States for Thanksgiving. Tim Kinsella speaks on behalf of everyone, and he's earned the right to. Leader of the band and brother of that Kinsella who, with American Football in 1999, split midwest emo in two, giving birth with "Never Meant" to an eternal riff capable of squeezing the bittersweet juice out of the fruit of melancholy.

Kinsella's guitar rings out, carving open, suspended chords, vaguely jazzy, over a rhythmic bed that the frantic, immaculate Theo Kastaounis lays down with zeal and power. They're two sides of the same coin, and probably a representation of the two forces that govern the cosmos: order and disorder. "There's no place safe and everything is perfect," sings Kinsella, and who's to argue? That's what Joan of Arc's music is, in the studio as much as live. In the disorder, post-rock and emo-core melodies float freely; in the order, the arithmetic subdivision and multiplication of math-rock.

Almost an hour goes by before the flow breaks and the audience gives the Chicago band their first round of applause. "Grange Hex Stream", "This Must Be The Placenta", "Vermont Girl", "Psy-fi/Fantasy": Joan Of Arc draw mostly from their last two albums, but listing the setlist and slicing up the songs one by one would somewhat betray the essence of the band.

Amid the musical delirium, Kinsella's guitar and synth spin out crooked, irregular melodies that, from a harmonic standpoint, sound like compliments clumsily phrased - yet delivered with such sweetness and sincerity that they still go straight to the heart. Toward the end, Ausikatis turns into a child again singing "Tiny Baby", and as she bends down to fiddle with the pedalboard effects, you can really picture her tinkering with her old dolls ("I cry when all boys in the book / stole their girl's doll and threw it in the mud").

The encore is an instrumental jam that carries you across the ocean and closes with a reference to 9/11. "Grazie, grazie, grazie." Someone in the crowd loudly demands a specific song, pulling it out from some unspecified corner of their vast discography. Wishes thrown into the air, hoping someone will catch them and turn them into reality.

I look toward Kinsella's fingers and call out for "Post Coitus Rock", but only at the end of the show do I realize I never actually did it, the way you think something and then never say it out loud. Maybe that's exactly why Joan Of Arc didn't play it. Still, the melodies and the compliments are enough, when they come from the heart.

(Thanks to Luca Benni)

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