Magdalena Abrego crouched over her pedalboard Sunday evening at Never Ending Books on State Street, and unleashed a lush, complex soundscape, a series of guitar-made tones layered over one another, now vibrating together.As the sounds continued pulsing around her, she began to play simple chords, laying down a rhythm, a chord progression. On the downbeat, Mali Obomsawin and Willis Evenson joined Abrego. The soundscape switched off in a second, and the band — Deerlady — sounded, suddenly, like a rock band. But the impression was left, and a point made, that the trio was drawing from a broad musical vocabulary. Which made sense; the last time Abrego, Obomsawin, and opener Allison Burik were in town, in May 2023, they were playing music that brought together elements of traditional Abenaki song and free jazz at Firehouse 12. Deerlady deployed a different sound, but still had the same searching sensibility.Allison Burik on alto saxophone and bass clarinet paved the way with a short, intense opening set playing compositions from their debut album, Realm. They began with a flourish of notes that set the mood and established Burik’s voice at once: direct, emotional, muscular, effortlessly combining the lyrical and the noisy. They used circular breathing to make sheets of continuous sound, often singing through the instrument at the same time that they played, then filling out the sound even further with judicious use of effects. From piece to piece, Burik played with a sense of total commitment to the music they were making, never holding back, pushing the tone of the instrument to its edge and sometimes beyond it. The performance grabbed hold of the audience and held them in suspense for the duration of the set, with almost no speaking from Burik in between pieces except for a quick thanks. The music was all that was needed.Deerlady. Deerlady — a songwriting project of Abrego and Obomsawin, which started its tour in August in New Mexico and wound its way here — established itself within its first song as a band that layered complexity into what sounded first like deceptively straightforward music. Obomsawin and Evenson were locked in as a rhythm section, with Evenson adding a touch of polyrhythmic flavor to some of his beats, while Obomsawin added departures from the usual in her bass playing, and held down lead vocals. Meanwhile, Abrego was a deft and inventive guitarist, knowing when to keep it simple, when to step up into an acrobatic solo, and when to deploy an array of effects and guitar techniques to create a huge atmosphere, while also singing harmonies. Together the band created a sound that often seemed larger than three people, and at the same time, could drop the music down to an intimate hush.“We didn’t know each other before working on these songs,” Abrego explained during the band’s set, ​“and now we’re friends.” Obomsawin’s and Abrego’s music has already found its way onto the soundtrack for the FX show Reservation Dogs, and bolstered by that success, they’ve decided to keep going and write more.It was easy to see why; each of Deerlady’s songs were sharp and engrossing, dark and vital, rolling together a stew of emotions and ending up with a resilient, bruised hope. Obomsawin mentioned earlier in the set her admiration for the DIY aesthetic of Never Ending Books. ​“I can unleash my high-school angst,” she joked. But Deerlady showed that anger and hurt can come in adult forms, too, and be turned into cathartic and empathic art.