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L7 once called the masses asses. Except for a few people by me committed to vindicating that declaration — the couple of statue-still and expressionless guys puzzlingly planted in the front row, the giggling friends who at one point chucked a cocktail-dampened tampon at one-time used-tampon chucker-slash-frontwoman Donita Sparks — the multigenerational audience at the band’s sold-out show at the Neptune Sunday made a pretty good argument against the flippant generality for the night. As this happy mass screamed back lyrics and headbanged and thrashed during the band’s thrilling 90-ish-minute-long show, I doubted anyone there would have bat an eye if an extra few sheets further thickened the multipage setlist.

L7’s current tour commemorates the 30th anniversary of its seminal third album. Co-produced with Butch Vig, Bricks Are Heavy marked both the group’s biggest commercial success and cemented its frequent (and mocked by Sparks mid-concert) categorization as a core grunge band, despite forming a few years earlier than the period’s mostly-agreed-upon golden era; hailing from Los Angeles rather than the Pacific Northwest; and, most obviously, having a spiky and driving sound more redolent of, say, Motörhead than most of what their peers were offering. (Simple designations are understandable, though, when you’ve bumped elbows with the likes of Nirvana, Hole, and Pearl Jam at their peaks and you don’t seem out of place when joining forces.) 

Read the rest of the review on 425.