The entrance to Valley Bar does not want you there. It looks uninviting and smells even worse. If you avoided it on principle you would be forgiven. You would also be wrong. Brave the first fifty feet of that godforsaken alleyway and you’re rewarded with a red neon sign glowing over a tucked away door that reads “Valley Bar.” IDs are checked at street level, and a door opens to reveal a dark, long staircase that carries you down into the basement. Two sets of double doors on your right open up into the narrow, intimate, and famously loud venue space. Most Phoenix locals know at least one person who has incurred a wee bit of permanent hearing damage at a Valley Bar show.
Ways Away and SMUG LLC handled the opening slots and helped build the energy in the room before Sincere Engineer took the stage. Frontwoman Deanna Belos and company opened with “Twist My Tongue,” the lead track off Probable Claws, which I am fully convinced is a Sagittarius anthem. All that being sick of biting your tongue and finally saying the thing out loud. Takes one to know one.
Belos spent as much time talking as playing, calling out her childhood friend Jill (Hi, Jill!) and her cousin in the crowd, trading jokes with her band and the fans between songs. It felt like being let in on something. This is a band that does not take itself seriously in the slightest, which somehow makes them easier to take seriously. Within the first couple of songs, the bass player’s hand was already bleeding and the guitarist had to run offstage to grab a backup after snapping a string. Blood and a broken string inside of ten minutes tells you exactly how much passion and energy they bring.
Belos has one of the more distinct voices in this genre, shredded and guttural, going full speed from the first song to the last. She comes across as somebody who means every single word, which is exactly why Sincere Engineer’s music lands with fans the way it does, and why the whole room was singing along to an album that had only been out three weeks. People are already floating album of the year talk about Probable Claws, and that room made the case.
Guitarist Kyle Geib spent the entire night having what appeared to be a religious experience, and even when he stepped back from his mic he was still belting every single word to himself. He is clearly as big a fan of Belos’s songwriting as anyone else in that room, and that kind of thing is contagious. Belos, Geib, and bassist Nick Arvanitis were all strapped into Reverend guitars, which at this point I take as a sign that a band has been blessed by the gods of this genre.
They closed the main set with “Overbite,” my number one song circa 2019, according to Spotify Wrapped. I had never heard it live until that night, and it was the highlight of the show for me. They then wrapped the show with “Trust Me” in the encore, with fans singing along to the chorus, “I need, I need, I need help.” After the show, Belos was found working the band’s own merch table, giving her full attention to every single person in a long line of fans. It always rules when bands do that, and this band has earned every fan in that line.
The “Probable Claws Tour” will continue making its way across the US through September 12. Tickets can be purchased here.
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