Review: Milk Carton Kids, Thekla

California’s Milk Carton Kids shuffled on stage at an absolutely packed and long-sold-out Thekla. “Welcome to our swampy hot boat” offers Kenneth Pattengale. With Joey Ryan they make up the curiously named duo, it’s their first time in Bristol and judging by the euphoric response to them from tonight’s somewhat sweaty throng it won’t be their last.

They’ve been at this a little while now, coming together as a duo in 2011. They are now half a dozen albums into things and are here on the back of The Only Ones which is either a long EP or a short album, depending on how half full the glass through which you view these things is. Back home they are veterans of endless coffee shop open mics. They came out of the same LA scene as Gary Jules who did that version of Mad World for Donnie Darko.

They’ve stuck at it and developed into a classy and entertaining act. Along the way they’ve had key breaks such as prestigious slots on a Coen Brothers hosted concert for the Inside Llewyn Davis film, NPR Tiny Desk broadcasts and being bigged-up by the likes of Marcus Mumford. They now find themselves in a happy situation that when they roll up in new towns like Bristol, they are met by enthusiastic audiences in packed mid-size venues who sing their lyrics right back at them.

They sit most readily in the section of the record shop that is currently occupied by Chris Thile, with or without The Punch Brothers, or Sara Jarosz for that matter. It’s a kind of pop folk, slipping for some of the more up-tempo songs into a chamber bluegrass. There are few rough edges left in their classy, tightly written sound. Their heavenly vocal harmonies are reminiscent of The Everlys and particularly Simon and Garfunkel. Their acoustic guitar sparing, with Pattengale delivering some astonishing spiralling lead lines, sitting comfortably with the interplay that Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings achieve.

A key part of their schtick is that they are very funny, a striking contrast to the mournful tone of much of their song writing. There is lots of dry, sardonic between-song banter and they seem to specialise in the gentle bickering of a still affectionate, endlessly likeable married couple who are all too aware of the others’ various foibles. Ryan’s weary straight man against Pattengale’s boyish, fidgety fun poking. It’s a little bit Annie Hall, maybe a hint of Loudon Wainwright. They have the crowd in stitches.

Tonight’s set draws on songs from across their career. They open with ‘Younger Years’, originally recorded with an expanded band for the All the Things I Did album, but working happily tonight in the acoustic duo setting. The harmonies are just lovely, and the guitar exchanges brings whoops of approval from the floor.

They seem to have found a peak in their song writing with the newer material. The title track from The Only Ones has their most memorable pop hook. ‘I Meant Every Word I Said’ is a post-break-up psycho drama framed in a delightful guitar figure. It is world weary, tired of the fighting, and sounds all too embedded in lived experience.

They throw in a cover of Pink Floyd’s ‘Wish You Were Here’, a guitar-shop classic but difficult to see what they add to the original. They lift the mood with the audience clapping and stomping along to the bluegrass, flat-picking fun of ‘Honey, Honey’. As an encore they step down from the stage to sing the delightful, heart-breaking ‘A Sea of Roses’ lit by torches from audience phones, from the middle of the venue’s floor. It wouldn’t sound out of place on an early Paul Simon solo LP. They close with their best known tune, ‘Michigan’, the first track from their debut album. Again it’s all so evocative and heart wrenching and the audience are audibly moved.

The Thekla crowd loved them. They are maybe at a cross roads of deciding if to move ahead as a duo or to further explore a bigger band sound, only time will tell. The evidence of tonight is that their writing is becoming stronger and they have developed a highly entertaining, sophisticated act. Hopefully they’ll be back soon, in a bigger hall, slowly building their audience base as they always have.

Photo from Harry McPhillimy