Rock Hill-based quartet Elonzo isn’t about sudden moves and bombastic choruses. It’s not about brashness or volume. Elonzo shuffles in subtlety and plaintive comfort. Frontman Jeremy Davis boasts a smooth croon, tempered by a melancholic moan and bolstered by the understated backing his band provides. Sister Maggie Davis Bourdeau sprinkles gentle keyboard phrases behind her brother’s guitars. Her husband, Dan Bourdeau, drives his drum kit firmly, but without frivolity, shuffling below the melody, pushing and pulling against it, coaxing direction from verses and choruses. Even when the band ramps up — as in the conclusion of “Town in the Pines” — with Davis peeling off slabs of guitar noise behind a plunking banjo and Bourdeau’s insistent drumming, its release is all the more effective for the song’s overall restraint. Ultimately, that’s exactly why Elonzo works. The band’s mostly straight-laced and clean-cut alt-country shuffles belie the intensity beneath them, and when that intensity pokes its head, it’s more dynamic than any blustering, scorched bar band could hope to be. The power is in the contrast. They share the stage this Saturday with local songwriter Harrison Ray’s latest act. —Bryan Reed
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