Cruel Black Dove Celebrates New EP, Covers Stooges in New York

To the uninitiated, Cruel Black Dove may seem an opportunistic band. Thursday night, as the coed electro-noir quartet celebrated the release of its sophomore EP, 'The Myth and the Sum,' at New York City's Mercury Lounge, its four members dressed and performed as if they'd just read a marketing report highlighting the popularity of 'Twilight' and all things vampire.

Of course, the Brooklyn band has been around since 2007, long before the teenybopper emo-goth paranormal-lit craze took hold. The group's formation also predated the resurgence of shoegaze and dream-pop music, genres with which it's loosely affiliated.

Cruel Black Dove, then, is more lucky than shrewd, even if Thursday's show revealed levels of calculation and professionalism seldom seen among groups that have yet to release full-length albums.

The foursome's brief six-song set included several tunes from the new EP, the brooding title track among them. As raven-haired lead singer Anastasia Dimou struck drama-club poses and reveled in the spooky echo of her reverb-heavy vocals, bassist Shirley Ho stood straight as a steeple, basking in the red glow of the light affixed to her microphone stand. Utterly expressionless, Ho competed with guitarist Alan Veucasovic to see who could look more sullen and detached -- qualities that suit the band's dark sound and image.

Save for Dumou, who favored a touch of gray, the musicians wore all black. Strobe lights flashed at all the right moments and projected images of black flames danced on the wall behind the stage.

In addition to tunes from 'The Myth and the Sum,' Cruel Black Dove offered up a stealthy cover of the Stooges' 'Gimme Danger.' The group transformed the song from brisk rock 'n' roll into smoldering, moody electro-pop. It wasn't until the chorus that Dimou came close enough to Iggy Pop's original melody to render the song recognizable.

It was a neat trick: crafty, perhaps, but not to the extent you'd question the band's conviction.