Queer indie-rock band Modern Nun celebrate small, everyday divinities on their new self-released debut EP, Name. The Chicago trio accompany their melodies with loose, relaxed guitars and straightforward drums, playing at a leisurely pace that allows their rich vocal harmonies to stand out in sharp relief. Those harmonies cluster in the quiet moments of Modern Nun’s minimal songs, their inviting coziness accentuating the music’s sweet lilt. Singer and guitarist Edie McKenna pays homage to the little joys you can make for yourself, and delivers her words with plenty of heart; on “Silk House,” she makes a metaphor of the plants she’s brought to life with her green thumb, and finds beauty even in their flaws (“And everything I grow in my garden is green / And even the rotten tomatoes look clean”). In a recent Block Club story, McKenna and her bandmates—guitarist Lee Simmons and drummer Haley Webster—describe the tension and pain they endured growing up queer in religious households. From the sound of Name, they’ve conjured a spirituality together to replace the one they shouldn’t have been denied in the first place.
The Laughing Hearts, Dunedogs, Modern Nun, Thu 1/13, 8 PM, Schubas, 3159 N. Southport, $15, $13 in advance, 18+
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