At the cosmic cabaret that is the Sultan Room in Bushwick partygirl hosted an EP release show supported by local acts this HOLY rodeo! and Rat Palace. The venue was packed, buzzing with friends, fans, with the usual chaotic energy that comes with a night of live music, with the temperature finally warm enough to grab a kebab upstairs on the rooftop patio for the first time of the season.

Rat Palace (self-described as “post-punk for people that have an average screen time of 7 hours or more a day”) kicked the night off with a loud jolt, riding the momentum of their debut album Dust Free Home, released last June. Alternating lead vocals between Rohit Sai Gopal and Ali Zimmerman, their voices give each track its own distinct identity, like flipping between radio stations that somehow all belong to the same band.

Gopal’s voice has a warm, ‘90s grunge pull, drifting into Audioslave-esque territory when the tempo cooled and the punk fuzz settled into something slower and more immersive. These moments flirted with shoegaze, hypnotic and hazy, but never too detached.

Julian Cornell’s guitar work stitched it all together, cutting through the haze with sharp, deliberate lines or melting right into the atmosphere, depending on the song’s temperature.

“How about another fast one?” Zimmerman shouted mid-set, feeding off the crowd’s growing frenzy. The band launched into a string of instrument-heavy punk anthems, channeling early-era Hole on their blistering single “Woman of the Year,” where Zimmerman howled, “Why don’t you teach me to be sweet?” between breathless, pounding beats from Lyle Rea, whose drumming was not just fast but as expressive as his face while he played. Rat Palace set the tone for the night: loud and genre-fluid.

Looking like the Bedford L-train stop came to life, the four boys from this HOLY rodeo! jump on the stage next. All of them wore oversized suit jackets, except the drummer, who was wearing what looked like a “Dan Flashes” button-up. They had a carnival-meets-dive-bar energy that was unquestionably eclectic.

Lead singer, Chris Harth, at one point picked up what looked like a Shakespeare anthology and read a poem from it. Unable to trace what story he was reading from, I stopped Mario Marques, bassist, at the merch table to identify. “I don’t know. He always chooses it on the spot. We don’t know what he’ll read until he starts reading it.” Mystery solved when I bumped into Harth later and he confirmed, “That’s all my writing, not Shakespeare. I’ve put it in the Bible before and read from that.”

The theatrics stood out. They have a ska/punk-adjacent song called “The March of the Breeders Descends Upon Manhattan” that’s about men in coveralls and yellow ski masks. Live, one of these was waiting on stage, who they referred to as “the Breeder” multiple times. He and a man dressed as a cop jumped into the audience at one point and started a pseudo-two person mosh pit that ended with the “Breeder” getting put under fake-arrest. Kitschy but fun, the crowd ate it up, like we’d stumbled into a “Keep Brooklyn Weird” convention.

Lastly, the headliners, partygirl, took stage. Singer Pagona Kytzidis had been in the audience for the past two bands, cheering and dancing, so she was instantly recognizable. When she started the band in 2021, she said she did so “to confront and process an ascent into adulthood littered with gendered conflict, systemic violence, a global pandemic, and political instability.”

They were performing that night to celebrate the release their EP I’m so charming, I forgot who I was, which opens with “Let’s Go Dancing,” a song that tries to answer the existential question: “New York looks smaller, doesn’t it?” The album is an emotional blend of “angular” post-punk and spoken-word confessional emo, bouncing between commentary on the state of the world and personal heartbreak and pitfalls.

Claire Jin Jenkins on violin and Jenna Love on saxophone added a layer of balanced chaos, classical textures that didn’t come across as ironic, but hopelessly earnest. The set was tight and vulnerable, with Kytzidis’ vocals sharp and raw, cutting through the haze of distortion and melancholy like a sudden light in a dark room.

“This album couldn’t be done without our family, our friends and our partners,” the band yelled out, and the crowd responded accordingly, clearly filled with the very people who were being thanked, along with a few newly converted fans.