Plus/Minus Greater Than/Less Than

Thanksgiving came a couple days early at the Croc last night, when +/- halted their set to don band insignia-clad aprons and invite the audience onstage for rotisserie chicken, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie. Seattlest didn't partake, as we had just eaten a great meal, but we did appreciate the gesture. At the same time, though, we couldn't help but feel that perhaps we would have been better served with less food and more music. Just like a carving knife, it cuts both ways.

The NYC quartet looked like four guys you knew from a math class in high school: there's the Filipino guy, the other Asian guy, and the two scrawny white guys, one of whom had more than a passing resemblance to Kip from Napoleon Dynamite. +/- kicked off their set with the title track off of new release Let's Build a Fire, big band samples, clarinet, and all. While they played a couple songs from their previous albums, the set was mostly comprised of songs from the new one, including the mathy, post-emo slowburn of "Fadeout" [mp3] and the light, delicate "Steal the Blueprints" [mp3], which we refer to as "their Postal Service song."

The band seemed to be in a great mood and interacted with the crowd a lot, not just in dishing out the holiday fare, but also by engaging in a lot of stage banter that was more a two-way conversation with members of the audience than anything else. Plus, they repeatedly professed their love to the crowd. Minus, their set was only eleven songs long, and we know they've got a bigger discography than that. What we heard was tight; we were just hungry for more.

Photo care of Flickr / user Ko(char *)hook.