Kevin Bronson on September 19th, 2015

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By Ben McShane

I asked almost everyone I know this week if they remember 1990s B-listers Hum, whose only notable single “Stars” was on Beavis and Butthead longer than it was on radio airwaves. I must have asked 30 people. Not a one remembered. And yet on Thursday night, a sold-out Regent Theater panted with anticipation for one of the ’90s’ most revered cult bands. Then they played an earth-cracking set that put almost every cash grab reunion of the past 10 years to shame.

Having reunited before it was cool — reliably every two or three years for the past 15 — this time around the “classic lineup” substituted longtime drummer Bryan St. Pere for Jason Gerken of Hum cohorts Shiner. The house would have gladly taken in the entire catalog, but had to settle for an even split of selections from “You’d Prefer an Astronaut” and “Downward is Heavenward,” with a couple “Elektra 2000” cuts thrown in. “Isle of the Cheetah” was the crown jewel of the show, a sprawling distorted guitar epic romance that would have stole the heart of any My Bloody Valentine devotee.

Hum’s sleight-of-hand was always capturing the majesty of their spacey post-rock shoegazing peers without the pretention; gorgeous mixed-under melodies and crushing waves of crunchy guitars more earthbound than their heavenly brethren. Thursday night’s set never got as earnest as “If You Are to Bloom” (regrettably absent from all the Midwesterners’ recent shows, it seems) and the most striking thing was a prevalence of their early hardcore and metal influences. This show was loud. Matt Talbott and company took an aggressive posture that asserted their right to be named with the best of your favorite ’90s rockers that long ago cashed their checks. A+ set; it’s hard to imagine seeing a better one all year.

Reunited Mineral, the sixth man of the third-wave emo canon, seemed like a perfect complement to open for Hum. Similarly under-appreciated and oft forgotten, I’d like to say they equally acquitted themselves, but the set never quite hit the emotional highs or lows associated with the genre. Overripe emo is tough to pull off; nobody really likes looking at pictures of themselves from puberty, and it’s hard to believe these grown men could feel such raw emotions with the same urgency as their younger selves. “Gloria” is still a torn-sweater classic, though.

Loud-and-proud L.A. quartet Mossbreaker opened the night with a well-received (and well-attended) set.

Hum setlist: Little Dipper, Comin’ Home, Iron Clad Lou, Green to Me, Suicide Machine, Scraper, Isle of the Cheetah, Inklings, Stars, I Hate It Too, I’d Like Your Hair Long, The Scientists