Cindy Zhou
I was first introduced to The Army, The Navy’s Maia Ciambriello and Sasha Goldberg after seeing them open for Matt Maltese in Los Angeles last year on his “Touring Just to Tour.” I immediately fell in love with their voices, which bleed into each other in a seamless and absolutely transcendent vocal fusion, and I’ve had them in my Spotify rotation ever since. This past Wednesday, April 16, I had the privilege of seeing the duo again at the House of Blues Voodoo Room on its “Gentle Hellraiser” Tour, the first headliner tour of its career.
The duo began its set with the tour’s namesake “Gentle Hellraiser,” a track on its debut album “Fruit for Flies.” The song opens with the haunting strumming of a guitar, transitioning into the vocals alone with only a sparse backtrack. Ciambriello and Goldberg didn’t just harmonize — their breaths rose and fell together like a shared inhale.
The lyrics of “Gentle Hellraiser” are full of oxymorons that reflect the blurred boundaries of an unhealthy relationship. With juxtaposing phrases like “gentle hellraiser” and “reckless lifesaver,” the song captures the emotional contradiction of a love that both saves and destroys — a relationship where devotion feels like surrender and selfhood begins to slip through your fingers. When Ciambriello and Goldberg sang the final repetition — “Do as I say, not as I do” — it landed like a quiet confession that felt both resigned and raw. The lyrics were a warning masked as advice that echoes the song’s central tension: how easy it is to lose yourself in the name of love, even when you know better.
Another memorable moment was when the band played “BBIDGI,” which also hails from “Fruit for Flies.” The duo’s vocal runs were the most impressive part of the performance — Ciambriello and Goldberg’s voices moved effortlessly in a fluid cascade of notes that unfurled like silk ribbon. When they sang, “Baby I don’t get it, I took off my clothes for you,” the audience screamed with them in a raw and frustrated cry that resonated with everyone who has ever laid themselves bare for someone and been abandoned with no explanation.
The song closes with the refrain, “You, you, yeah you won’t keep me,” a line that Ciambriello and Goldberg deliver with haunting harmony and near-instinctual precision. Even in its defiance, the lyric holds a quiet ache — a recognition that the person being addressed holds power they shouldn’t. The band’s live performance plays like an open wound dressed in silk: a confession of vulnerability, confusion, and the slow reclamation of self worth in the aftermath of being dismissed.
The standout song of the night was “40%,” which comes off their latest album, “Sugar for Bugs.” They opened the song with an eerie duet. Ciambriello and Goldberg held hands as they sang together, their voices filling the Voodoo Room. It felt as if they were performing a seance or casting a spell, some kind of otherworldly ritual that only they knew of. Suddenly, Ciambriello came in with the big burst of a guitar riff, the backtrack followed with the rhythm of drums, and the crowd erupted in cheers.
“40%” certainly has the most extensive production out of all of The Army, The Navy songs. While it normally uses the blend of the two’s voices to form the foundation for its whimsical, vocal-forward style of music, “40%” deviates from that established style entirely. It is bold and loud in comparison to its usual soft and understated sound, yet the song somehow still feels true to its style at its core.
Suddenly, at the bridge of the song, Ciambriello and Goldberg stopped singing, going silent and tricking the audience who had been screaming the words along with them. They used the song’s main lyric, “Say my name, say it again,” to transition into a short cover of “Say My Name” by Destiny’s Child. It was a surprise, but certainly a welcome one.
One of the last songs of the night was “Vienna (In Memoriam),” a “Fruit for Flies” single The Army, The Navy initially released in November 2023. I first heard “Vienna” at the duo’s performance opening for Matt Maltese and had assumed that the song’s references had been metaphorical; the “cat” that “did a number” on Vienna perhaps being a symbol for a more general struggle. However, after performing the song, Ciambriello and Goldberg shared the backstory, revealing how “Vienna” is literally a song mourning the death of a mouse: When they lived together in Louisiana, their house was plagued by a rat infestation. Even after doing everything possible to get rid of them, one particularly stubborn rat, whom they named Bratwurst, refused to leave. Bratwurst eventually gave birth to a litter of babies, and one of them was christened Vienna Sausage — the song’s namesake. Vienna eventually met her untimely end at the paws of their cat, which was the moment of tragedy that inspired the song.
To me, that’s one of the most admirable abilities of artists: the way they can take something seemingly mundane, like the death of a rat in their house, find beauty or inspiration in the experience, and turn that interpretation into something more. “Vienna” is a testament to their creative power, and the fact that I could connect and find meaning in the song without knowing the true details of the story only further illustrates how strange and remarkable The Army, The Navy is.
As the night came to a close, it was clear that the magic of the evening wasn’t just in the music but also in the space it created. The band turned the Voodoo Room into something softer and more intimate, like a secret shared under candlelight: small, warm, and overflowing with connection. You could feel how deeply the band’s music resonated with the audience every time the crowd echoed each lyric back.
With this tour, The Army, The Navy has evolved from the small artists that I saw open last year. Now, the duo stands independently as folk-pop superstars with a dedicated fanbase. Ciambriello and Goldberg’s performance didn’t ask for attention so much as it invited you in, and by the end, it felt like we had all been let in on something sacred.