It helps. Friday afternoon, the screaming was internal. Thank goddess Cherry Glazerr made it audible Friday night at their show at the Middle East Upstairs. Cherry Glazerr is not known for screamo vocals or a particularly hard sound. The band, whose current lineup is Clementine Creevy, Tabor Allen, and Sasami Ashworth, is from California and leans more towards garage and psychedelic rock, with some surf-rock touches thrown in more often than not. However, their latest album, Apocalipstick (released the night of the show), is louder than previous releases and unabashed about its feminist message. The album is the first to feature this lineup, and they brought the volume and the anger to their Cambridge show.

The night started with energetic performances by Midriffs and Slow Hollows. Midriffs, based in Boston, have a classic surf-rock sound with a lot of phaser and a lot of lyrics about bodies of water. And it was great—exactly what we all needed. The band put everyone in a good mood, especially when the lead singer made a plug for the Women’s March. Despite the fact that most of the audience was probably not even of voting age, they certainly still seemed angry about the political atmosphere, or at least ready to cheer about resistance. The second opener, Slow Hollows, did not have any female members, but they did have a unique sound that kept the phaser-induced vibes alive. Austin Feinstein’s lead vocals were unexpectedly deep and nice to listen to, but Daniel Fox on trumpet truly made the band’s sound stand out. Check out WHRB’s pre-show interview with them here: /archive/if-you-think-youre-ro...

To my delight, the crowd did not just stay mellowed out. Cherry Glazerr donned the small stage with three colorful fabric vaginas to a chorus of raucous and pleased cheers. Creevy might have seemed unsure in her banter between songs—starting off saying that it had been a weird day, but they were here for, “music as resistance, you know?”—but she made her confidence clear with her vocals and riffs. Performed live, the songs from Apocalipstick seemed even more urgent. With “Sip O’ Poison,” in particular, Creevy dug deep, pushing her voice to the limits to create the loudest and rawest sounds.

Creevy kept the small crowd engaged all night. She gave out high fives to the front row of the audience after happily announcing that she loved to see that it was all women. She and Ashworth sang a quiet but wonderful thirty second ditty about vaginas. Halfway through the performance, Creevy read out Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl.” The recitation was pretty sloppy, not necessarily doing Kincaid the justice she and her amazing words deserve, but the sentiment was nice, and gave us all the rare chance to experience sitting on the floor of the Middle East Upstairs.

It was one of those concerts where I didn’t really want it to end, despite being exhausted in every sense of the word. The encore was fitting, though, a cover of Nirvana’s “Territorial Pissings” that spurred an earnest and eager—albeit mild—mosh pit. Nothing like some teens shaking their hair to Nirvana to get you feeling some type of way. As long as the ones who didn’t know Kincaid looked up her work when they went home, there might be some hope forthe future, after all.

Monica de los Reyes is a DJ for WHRB’s punk station, the Record Hospital, and the Blues Hangover.

Also, here's a new video she drops: