MALDROID
The Stork Club (Oakland)
August 16, 2007

Two of the songs in Maldroid’s set were about the bane that is day jobs. By design, day jobs may soon be a thing of the past for the Oakland-based band. In a little over a year they’ve become Internet darlings by winning YouTube’s first online music contest and establishing a relationship with the San Francisco web-based promotional label Fuzz. They even have a highly informative, extremely up-to-date Wikipedia entry (ok, ok a Wikipedia entry isn’t all that difficult to come by). 

Maldroid’s sound is nu-wave indie rock that’s a mix of Devo, Iggy Pop, Beck (when he’s not being sensitive) and a little Brit pop. They don’t sound quite as clean and pristine live as they do on their EP, Malfunction, but their catchy beats, hook-laden lyrics, matching gold suits, and robot-inspired stage lighting make for quite an entertaining performance.

The song transitions are tight and the tempo is steady enough to keep up the audience’s energy, but you can’t help but feel as though the onstage antics are covering up a bit for what the band lacks in sound quality and consistency. Nevertheless, lead singer Ryan Divine will out-dance you any night of the week. In fact, he’ll out dance everyone within mic cord range.

Maldroid takes over the Stork Club every Thursday night of August and September.  Their two-month residency should provide them ample time to hone in on perfecting their stage performance and help them get past the hype of their online image.

[nicole leigh]

[STREAM] Maldroid: Various Tracks