Core. Presents: Glitterer

19:00 Doors - 22:00 Curfew

Glitterer, the Washington, D.C., post-hardcore band, has a new record, its fourth full-length album. It’s called erer and it’s on Purple Circle Records, a little label that singer/bassist Ned Russin co owns. Performed by a revamped lineup — drummer Robin Zeijlon and guitarist Colin Gorman came on board last year, joining singer/bassist Ned Russin and keyboardist Nicole Dao — and recorded by the prolific producer/engineer Arthur Rizk, who has worked on every Glittererer release since 2019, erer is the most thematically urgent work the band has produced to date. It’s also the most immediately and sustainedly ear-pleasing.

Paradigmatically, the lead single, “Stainless Steel,” booms Albini like with sturdy yet subtle drumming, massive stereo guitars, and all manner of counterpoints and complements emanating from the keyboard, in support of a melody — a classic Glitterer melody —that twists and turns, starts and stops, and goes exactly where the listener didn’t remotely realize it needed to go. And in Russin’s typically sapient lyrics we hear, without superfluity or mawkishness, the bewilderment, resignation, anger, guilt, and stubborn commitment to beauty and community that the album exists to express. It’s the dialectical inner monologue of a socially engaged, intellectually curious creative aspirant — a person not unlike yourself — who can’t help but notice that it’s all coming to nothing. “It’s everywhere I turn / I can’t escape / I wish I had ability innate / I wish I wasn't incapacitated,” Russin sings. “I’ll pretend that I’m stainless steel / I’ll forget that this all is real.” What more needs to be said?

Age Restrictions: 14+ / Under 16s must be accompanied by an 18+ adult

General Admission / Standing