14 ICED BEARS, SEAPONY, GHOST ANIMAL

This show is rightly getting a lot of play this week (including, uh, another article on Seapony by yours truly, see page 39), but let's not overlook openers Ghost Animal. Frontman/songwriter Michael Avishay recently completed his senior thesis on Virginia Woolf's The Waves (miraculously, without committing seppuku halfway through), which is surprising, because his and bandmate Marisa Rowland's music is the sentimental opposite of Woolf's stubbornly experimental, emotionally draining "abstract mystical eyeless book." It's also majestically oceanic and nearly as sonically coarse as Grave Babies' bleak, distortion-cocooned gore-pop (though hella more beatific, lyrically speaking). Vera Project, 7:30 pm, $9/$10.

NICHOLAS KRGOVICH, KEY LOSERS, MOUNT EERIE

Phil Elverum headlines this show, which (duh) is pretty much the same as an ironclad guarantee of greatness. Vera Project, 7:30 pm, $10/$11.

NAOMI PUNK, WALTER TV, WATERMELON, ZEPHYRS

I'm beginning to think Vancouver, BC, is the secret wellspring of the world's best band names. Walter TV, besides being fans of Gak and radical new age painter Gilbert Williams, are gifted Canuckleheads with a supple sound: At times, they're like a carbonated combination of locals Naomi Punk and more outwardly psychedelic, theatrical bands. Other offerings, like "Neccessittyy," seem unmistakably set in the same wetlands milieu as Animal Collective vocalist Avey Tare's recent solo effort Down There. Watermelon make summer-drive music: breezily assured, dusk-bruised post-punk with wicked-cool guitar licks. Openers Zephyrs are one of my favorite young bands—their self-released digital LP Bye Sun is a bravura bit of scrappy, off-the-cuff punk and pop peppered with found-sound flourishes. Cairo, 8 pm, $5.