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I’ve taken to the Bleader before to express my love for Puffy Areolas and all things related. I included their chaotic set at last year’s HoZac Blackout festival in my “most memorable live rock of 2011” post, and I saw them about five times at SXSW this spring—by now they’ve pretty much worked their way into my heart as my favorite live band ever. This Cleveland collective’s anything-goes approach to scuzzy psychedelic rock combines layers of guitar and saxophone noise with repetitive, driving rhythms, and it’s always bigger, louder, and scarier live. As the fest in Austin progressed, the number of members onstage with the band grew—by the end, they were playing as a seven-piece, complete with two drummers and three guitarists. It felt like they were just picking any cretin off the street to join in—but the wall of sound was unreal.
