Kevin Bronson on February 18th, 2019

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Cody Votolato’s new album under the name JR Slayer, “You Found Me,” is a restrained and all-nerves-exposed affair written in his bedroom. It’s affecting music that’s opposite in temperament to the bands in which he’s played guitar — thee Blood Brothers, Head Wound City and Jaguar Love.

There was nothing restrained about the JR Slayer album release show on Saturday night at the Hi Hat, though. Votolato was backed by a veritable supergroup of local talent — the singer-songwriter’s sister Brandi Votolato on backing vocals, Andrew Martin (Moon Honey) on guitar, Ihui Cherise Wu (Polatropica) on keys, Logan Baudean (Moon Honey) on drums and Seth Mankoski on bass. In their hands, the skeletal songs on “You Found Me” became fleshed-out giants that sounded like your favorite emo band from 2000.

As she does on the first track of the album, Jennylee (Jenny Lee Lindberg of Warpaint) lent her vocals to “I’ll Never Leave U.” They covered “So Busted” by Culture Abuse. By the end, Votolato had shed his hoodie, stretched his white T-shirt and was smiling broadly. So was just about everybody.

Facial preceded the headliners with set that included new material leaning more toward caustic post-punk than the heady thrash-and-bash of their 2017 album “Facade.” SLUGS rattled the rafters with a opening set including songs from their “Cool World” EP.

Photos by Zane Roessell