THURSDAY 2/15

UNLEASHED, KRISIUN, BELPHEGOR, VULGARIZER, EMBALMED
(Studio Seven) Featuring groups that seldom tour North America, this concert is like a misanthropic global summit, with several countries sending their most malevolent delegates. Sweden's Unleashed play punk-informed, darkly humorous death-metal epics populated with rampaging Vikings ("We raise the hammer high/and call to Thor for a sign"). Brazil's Krisiun prefer staggered thrash riffs, brutally gruff vocals, and polysyllabic blasphemy ("aborticide inside the temple of holiness"). Austria's Belphegor rank as the bill's most musically accessible—and lyrically repugnant—band. As befitting an outfit named for a demon that demanded excrement as a sacrifice, Belphegor revel in scatological imagery, not to mention graphic necrophilic fantasies. Grotesqueries aside, Belphegor can convince even casual metal fans to swear allegiance to their darkly melodic guitar lines, relatively enunciated growls, and spectacular blast beats. ANDREW MILLER

ELENI MANDELL, ERIN McKEOWN
(Tractor) Do you consider black-and-white films aesthetically superior to color? Brew your coffee in a battered percolator? Pose in thrift-store mirrors, bedecked in party hats with fetching little veils? Have I got a double bill for you. Eleni Mandell and Erin McKeown both specialize in snazzy songs that sound rooted in a bygone era, yet retain enough of a modern sensibility to sidestep being labeled retro. The former just issued Miracle of Five, which retains the bittersweet romanticism of her earlier work, packaged in increasingly concise, catchy forms. And McKeown is plugging Sing You Sinners, a dozen lively adaptations of jazz and Tin Pan Alley ditties (plus one original) that even diehard show queens haven't memorized: "Rhode Island Is Famous for You" and "I Was a Little Too Lonely (You Were a Little Too Late)." KURT B. REIGHLEY

FRIDAY 2/16

SING SING, LOW-BUDGET, FOURCOLORZACK, PRETTY TITTY, THE DEEEP V'S, GUESTS
(Chop Suey) See Stranger Suggests, page 25.

GRIZZLY BEAR, PAPERCUTS, CAVE SINGERS
(Neumo's) San Francisco—based band Papercuts employ various ghosts of popular music past in the construction of their keening, emotional songs. The dramatic swagger of Roy Orbison, the heart-tight sonic sparseness of Otis Redding, and the relaxed rock hypnotism of Blonde on Blonde—era Bob Dylan all find flourish in the music made by consummate songman Jason Quever and company. This month finds the release of their latest full-length, Can't Go Back, on Vetiver frontman/Devendra Banhart foil Andy Cabic's Gnomonsong label. Focused dually on the High Lonesome voice and the tape-saturated production aesthetic of Quever, it is a collection of beautiful and yearning songs and its accomplished air is the product of Papercuts' years of diligence and concerted refinement. SAM MICKENS

THE COPS, PARTMAN PARTHORSE, THE SNAKEBITES, 1090 CLUB
(Funhouse) Partman Parthorse are like new-wave Beastie Boys. No sleep, till Ballard. Or Burien even. It's post-pop-punk dance music. Raw and for the people. If pop is over, Partman Parthorse have begun it again, with more moog and Sex Pistols—type nurturing. Throw in some Flock of Seagulls while you're at it. But slightly more pissed Seagulls. Parthorse? Yes, animalistic. They corrupt the keyboard with heat-bred songs of sex and hope. Shirts are taken off and kung fu is spontaneously performed. Two words: to party. Then out of nowhere, Gary Smith sings sage-like advice in the song "People." "If life is too busy, then slow it down and get it on." See? Make noise, not war. Love is better loud. TRENT MOORMAN

SEATTLE IMPROVISED MUSIC FESTIVAL: NATE WOOLEY, JEFFREY ALLPORT, JASON E. ANDERSON, TATSUYA NAKATANI, ANDREA NEUMANN, GUST BURNS
(Gallery 1412) The Seattle Improvised Music Festival's second weekend features artists drawn from even more far-reaching corners of the globe than its first. This show, the festival's penultimate evening, curatorially combines amazing international improvisers, including Berlin-based inside-pianist Andrea Neumann, New Yorkers drummer Tatsuya Nakatani and trumpeter Nate Wooley, and British Colombian Jeffrey Allport, alongside the similarly brilliant local musicians Gust Burns and Jason Anderson. With solo sets from both Wooley and the insidiously humorous Nakatani, as well as mixed groups featuring different recombinations of the performers. It should prove a weird and stirring night. Saturday's concert finds the out of towners again presented in various configurations, this time intermingled with the somewhat more energy-focused Seattleites Bill Horist (guitar/prepared guitar) and Wally Shoup (saxophone). SAM MICKENS

PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, SUPERNOVA, ROCK-N-ROLL SOLDIERS, DJ CHERRY CANOE
(Showbox) Seattle is clearly a city drenched in musical nostalgia—there's the Jimi Hendrix statue on Broadway, Paul Allen's unintentionally ironic Experience Music Project (where music goes to die under glass), the bittersweet memory of our 15 minutes as global rock 'n' roll mecca. And then there's the Presidents of the United States of America, a kind of living museum from the fallout years after the grunge explosion (Grunge Explosion, by the way, should be the name of an all-grunge cover band). If anybody understands living in one's own shadow it's these guys, or maybe their old buddy Sir Mix-A-Lot. But whatever, the Presidents are so professionally high on helium they're impossible to deflate. They've had hits, they've had misses, and they've always seemed like they couldn't care less. ERIC GRANDY

SATURDAY 2/17

VARIOUS, SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, NDCV
(Chop Suey) See Data Breaker, page 49.

ADRIAN ORANGE W/CHILD SLAVE REBELLION, LAKE, CAR SCARS, OLIVER ORION, COCK & SWAN
(Dearborn House) Under the catchall moniker of Thanksgiving, young Portland folk devotee Adrian Orange has released roughly a dozen more records than you ever will in your lifetime—and all before he could drink anywhere south of Canada. But there comes a time when every precocious young artist must move past the baggage of prodigy. In Orange's case, that first meant taking a cue from his sometime mentor Phil Elverum and dropping his festively familiar band name in exchange for the one on his W-2s. Secondly, it meant dropping the first masterpiece in his already impressive discography, last year's criminally overlooked Bitches Is Lord (released on Marriage Records, a label cohelmed by the boy wonder himself). The pinnacle of all of Orange's heretofore scattered self-mythology, Bitches is the work of a powerfully singular voice—the voice of a man all grow'd up. ZAC PENNINGTON

THEE EMERGENCY, ICEAGE COBRA, THE HANDS, A GUN THAT SHOOTS KNIVES
(Sunset) Blammo! Zap! When Thee Emergency play live, they're like comic-book superheroes, annihilating Seattle crowds with their double wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am dose of retro Detroit garage-rock soul. Lead vocalist Dita Vox will destroy you with her hedonistic, bellowing voice, and lead guitarist Sonic Smith will astonish you with his tasty licks and acrobatic stage dynamics. By joining forces with Iceage Cobra, the Hands, and A Gun That Shoots Knives—three other hard-rocking local dynamos—on this incredible local bill, Thee Emergency will undoubtedly save many a Seattleite from a potentially dull night of live music. Don't miss a minute: Openers A Gun That Shoots Knives have been known for spectacular theatrics and costumes to complement their indie-rock superpowers, the Hands are a current (and deserved) KEXP favorite, and Iceage Cobra's howling, growling big rawk sound will leave bad guys begging for mercy. The Hall of Justice never had it this loud or this good. DANA BOS

SUNDAY 2/18

THE SHINS
(Paramount) See CD Reviews, page 39.

HEAVY LIDS, SON OF ROSE
(Gallery 1412) Seattle's Son of Rose (Kamran Sadeghi) is always a riveting live performer, whether he's using treated piano or laptop. His tactile, finely granulated compositions teem with iridescent sound molecules that expand to galactic dimensions on a good system. Heavy Lids (Portland guitarist Marc Manning) generates spectral drones and what sound like phantasmal monk hums in his epic devotional instrumentals. His new CD, Things Are Happening at the Same Time (Dragon's Eye Recordings), is like a 36-minute tantric-sex shudder rendered in seemingly static yet perpetually glistening guitar tones. It could be three seconds of Sterling Morrison's guitar and John Cale's viola snipped from the Velvet Underground's "Venus in Furs" and then inflated into a mystical symphony: sublimely immersive stuff. DAVE SEGAL

MONDAY 2/19

ROB CROW, GHOST STORIES, GRAIG MARKEL
(Chop Suey) Ghost Stories is Ron Lewis, a multi-instrumentalist who has honed his chops playing with Fruit Bats, the Joggers, and Colin Meloy. Quixoticism (on local Sonic Boom Recordings) is his debut album, and while it can, admittedly, be tagged with numerous clichés of music-critic shorthand (lo-fi, indie pop, epic, etc.), it blithely defies pigeonholing. Had this 11-song set been made 20 or 30 years ago, mouth-breathing record nerds would devote entire blogs to it. Take "The Upper Ten/The Lower Five," with its winding, indelible melody just brimming with the sort of jubilance one associates with chase montages from Scooby-Doo, albeit viewed through a lens of Belle & Sebastian fandom. And the arrangements! Nitrous oxide backing vocals, harmonium, sitar... if the devil is in the details, Lewis is Beelzebub incarnate. Surrender to him, now. KURT B. REIGHLEY

TUESDAY 2/20

THE SHINS
(Paramount) See CD Reviews, page 39.

WEDNESDAY 2/21

THE THERMALS, HELVETIA, SPEAKER SPEAKER
(Chop Suey) See preview, page 34.

MATT VALENTINE & ERIKA ELDER, CHARALAMBIDES, CLIMAX GOLDEN TWINS
(Gallery 1412) Tonight, we are blessed with a sublime musical pairing that goes together like bees and honey. Primarily known for his work with folk deconstructionists the Tower Recordings, the prolific Matt Valentine has spilled out a bevy of excellent releases as the Medicine Show and with cohort Erika Elder. Equally slumberous and gripping, the duo's blues mantras and ritualistic modal voyages are like gliding down rivers of ether. The vastly underrated Charalambides (pronounced "Char-eh-lam-bah-deez") have been stretching the outer boundaries of free folk since 1991, back when Devendra Banhart and Animal Collective were still pimply teenagers. Collaborators (and former man and wife) Tom and Christina Carter effortlessly induce spirit visions of fragile balladry and hallucinatory dreamscapes. Anyone with even a passing interest in psychedelic music will get more than their money's worth from this euphoric meeting of minds. JOSH BLANCHARD

GLENN KOTCHE, NELS CLINE
(Triple Door) Wilco's members often do their most interesting work in side and/or solo projects. Such is the case with master percussionist Glenn Kotche. In his On Fillmore group with bassist Darin Gray, Kotche combines delicate, chillingly gorgeous metallic percussion with lithe fusionoid bass and chunky Can-like rhythms (ca. Tago Mago). Kotche's latest solo release, Mobile, reflects his interest in gamelan and the vast tonal riches of the trap kit, vibes, gongs, mbiras, kalimbas, etc. It's a drummer's paradise. Nels Cline is a chameleonic guitarist who sounds inventive, incisive, and enticingly clangorous no matter in what context he's playing (see especially Nels Cline Singers, Gregg Bendian's Interzone, and L. Stinkbug). Any show with musicians this pedigreed, skilled, and versatile is bound to surprise and dazzle. DAVE SEGAL