Though you can't count on Seattle for reliable spring weather, you can count on it for excellent offerings of live music. This week, our music critics have picked the best options, ranging from the throne-warmer for the freak-rock legacy (Dweezil Zappa) to the cure for seasonal affective disorder (Sofi Tukker), and from one of the most interesting young techno artists in America (UMFANG) to the return of a reenergized Lupe Fiasco. See all of their recommendations below, and find even more shows on our complete music calendar.

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MONDAY

Taylor Bennett
Chicago native Taylor Bennett steps out from his big brother Chance The Rapper's shadow for a solo all-ages set of hiphop with a positive bent.

The xx with Sampha
The xx have their woozy, dream-pop-with-an-edge factory party standard down pat, so let’s talk about Sampha. Nina Simone often spoke on the responsibility of artists to reflect the issues of their time through their work, thereby providing both creative interpretations and new perspectives on how to respond. Sampha delves into our current reality’s harsher glares, like the obstacles facing the safety of black men, being haunted by former lovers, and the deaths of friends and family, with the benevolent honesty of uninhibited soul music. Despite the density of the subject matter in his debut full-length, Process, Sampha’s skillful production—a marriage of classical traditions and newer electronic modes—expands the mood by lowering the listener into a brain-massaging bowl of ice water. The nature of this crystalline realm, populated by the effervescence of pure-hearted falsetto, arctic synths, and blinking emotional touchstones, allows your mind to wander freely around the perimeter of his deep, creative memory. KIM SELLING

TUESDAY

Killswitch Engage and Anthrax with The Devil Wears Prada
In November 2012 I was transported, via time warp, to 2002. On the stage at SODO area venue Studio Seven, a band by the name of Killswitch Engage unearthed their most influential album, 2002’s Alive Or Just Breathing, in it’s entirety—complete with original vocalist Jesse Leach. Sure, you might scoff at the melodic cheesiness of their music, but like I said in my column giving respect to recently deceased vocalist of Suicide Silence, Mitch Lucker—a quick glance at the ridiculous amount of Killswitch clones that started popping up worldwide after its release is a true testament to how big this record was, and continues to be, on the metalcore family tree. KEVIN DIERS

Spiral Stairs, Pale Noise, Mystic Soul Potion
With Pavement and Preston School of Industry in his rearview mirror, Scott Kannberg, aka Spiral Stairs, emerges as full-fledged solo artist on Doris and the Daggers. The follow-up to The Real Feel took eight years to materialize, as Kannberg spent time in Seattle and Brisbane, started a family, and lost close friend Darius Minwalla, with whom he had planned to collaborate (drummers from Broken Social Scene and Shudder to Think filled in). The result is a well-crafted pop gem with excursions into glam disco and acid country that plays more like Australia in the 1980s than America in the 2010s. Now based in Mexico, Kannberg recorded in California with Kelley Stoltz and the National’s Matt Berninger, who sings on the Go-Betweens-esque “Exiled Tonight.” KATHY FENNESSY

The Wedding Present, Colleen Green Band, The Malady of Sevendials
Sensitive indie-rock enthusiasts already know and adore the Wedding Present for their lovelorn, John Peel–lauded UK jangle. Forming in 1985 amid the original C86-style British indie-pop scene with shimmering, fast guitars and wistful, romantic lyrics, the Wedding Present developed a cult fan base over the next decade but never attained Smiths-level popularity, as they deserved. In 2012, David Gedge and company toured behind their Steve Albini–produced 1991 album, Seamonsters, following with a tour of their debut, George Best, the next year. The band also worked with Albini to rerecord George Best for its 30th-anniversary reissue, due out later this year. The 1987 version of Best sees the band at their brightest and jangliest, but Albini’s production also helped Seamonsters to become their heaviest and most bass-centric record. This collaboration brings WP fans something to anticipate after the 2016 release of their ninth album, Going, Going. BRITTNIE FULLER

TUESDAY-THURSDAY

Lizz Wright
Gospel-jazz impresario Lizz Wright has established herself as a powerful singer-songwriter with a remarkable alto voice. For three nights, she'll team up with four-time Grammy-winning bassist and producer Larry Klein for some earthy and affecting jazz interpretations.

WEDNESDAY

Bastille
Indie arena rockers Bastille will take on the WaMu Theater on their Wild, Wild World Tour.

Betty Who with Vérité
Heavily biting on the dance pop balladeers on the '80s and '90s, Betty Who cruises into the 2010s holding tight the influences of higher icons. Her buzzworthy blonde bob may get more attention than her music, but Betty's latest album The Valley is aiming to change all that. She'll be joined by opener Vérité, whose alt-pop songstress stylings have carried her up the ranks, and will be performing tracks off her forthcoming album Somewhere in Between.

Dweezil Zappa
Dweezil Zappa released one of the funkiest and multifaceted albums of 2015! It’s called Via Zammata and it’s way rad, to use an 1980s expression. At the Neptune, though, he’ll probably bow to the tour title “50 Years of Frank” and play a lot of his father’s music. Then again, he might just do whatever the fuck he wants, since he’s been into whatever the fuck he wants recently—because his younger siblings, Ahmet and Diva, started feuding with him over the family trust and legacy. Long story. But you’ll get some of it at the show, I daresay. Oh, did I mention Dweezil has been known to play long medleys of ’80s hits? ANDREW HAMLIN

Oh, Rose, Detective Party, Jenny Creep
Oh, Rose—whose Bandcamp page credits her for “Singinizin and guitarinatin”—sounds full of ideals, and full of want, want rising from aching to fist-shaking, as a given track rises to a dangerous boil. The other musicians play it cool and low, but she always comes through. Detective Agency use a harmonica—sweet! I never hear harmonica in pop anymore. Their sound is sweet, smooth, reverby, like a gentler Primitives. Jenny Creep offer more wry female vocals, as two singers compare notes, both musical and gossip-wise over restless toiling drums and a violin rubbery and supple all the way down at the bottom of the mix. I don’t know that I’d have mixed the drums and the bass above the violin, but the more I listen, the more I smile. ANDREW HAMLIN

The Weeknd
I confess, I like the Weeknd. He’s like a stouter, low-rent, Canadian version of Michael Jackson, obviously without the decades of talent and experience to back him up, but possessing a similar vocal quality and overarching pop sensibility to his R&B swagger. Plus, he writes songs that are deep and catchy. Both “The Hills” and “Can’t Feel My Face”—his two highest charters off 2015’s Beauty Behind the Madness—reference his latent drug use, the former being a moody, intimate, non-love song focused on his emotional unavailability, the latter a heavily-MJ-influenced dance-floor-ready track that uses love as a metaphor for addiction. Although “I Feel It Coming”—the single off 2016’s Starboy that’s been saturating mainstream airwaves lately—is surprisingly mundane for being a Daft Punk collab, the title track (also featuring the French electro duo) is a bass-bumping, beat-tastic jam, while his cut with Kendrick Lamar, “Sidewalks,” is funky and tight as hell. LEILANI POLK

THURSDAY

Califone, Tara Jane ONeil, Rachel Blumberg, Wynne Greenwood
This expertly assembled indie-folk bill should stir feelings of intense introspection in a mandatory sit-down, intimate setting at Gallery 1412. Since the beginning of her career in the early 1990s, Tara Jane O’Neil has traversed varied indie-rock territory, playing bass with post-hardcore Slint contemporaries Rodan and later in the Sonora Pine with ex-Lungfish guitarist Sean Meadows. Her solo work is delivered with a breathy and celestial lilt; O’Neil casts an inescapably relaxing web of sad song spells with a purely ethereal presence. Combining elements of traditional Americana with avant-garde experimentation, homespun-folk standbys Califone have carved a lasting impression in indie folk’s crowded landscape since the early 2000s. This is not your everyday indie-folk show, and there’s something for even the most acoustic-guitar-averse. BRITTNIE FULLER

The Classic Crime with The Only Constant
Local alt-rock stalwarts The Classic Crime will celebrate the release of their latest album with a headlining set of their older work and newer soon-to-be hits with support from The Only Constant.

Joseph with Bailen
Rapidly rising band of harmonizing sisters Joseph have returned to Seattle after their last sold out tour, and will be joined by Bailen for a night of folk-tradition-infused pop.

Scarves, On Drugs, Critté, Sunday Night Heat
Seattle trio Scarves’ new album, Mall Goths, consists of 10 tracks “depicting characters along the I-5 corridor between Bellingham, Washington, and Portland, Oregon. Struggling against their reality, desperate for rebellion, yet inextricably stuck, they fall in love in one city and break up in the next.” Surely you can relate. Musically, Mall Goths is bright-orange rock with oddly sing-along-able choruses, sung by an androgynous-sounding dude who strikes me as the rock equivalent of Porter Ray, in terms of vocal timbre. The songs surge and soar on the wings of peculiar chord progressions, which music like this demands in order to avoid coming off as humdrum. DAVE SEGAL

THURSDAY & SATURDAY

Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1
One of the most recognizable concertos of all time, Tchaikovsky's iconic Piano Concerto No. 1 is brimming with sparkling melodies and deeply virtuosic demands of the musicians who perform it.

FRIDAY

107.7 The End Endsession with alt-J
107.7 The End and Chop Suey will co-sponsor this "Endsession" with complex Top40 electronica group alt-J. The event is free and open to the public, and if you're one of the first 20 people there, you may even get to meet the band.

Artist Home and KEXP Present: Cataldo's "Nerd Prom"
Celebrate the release of Cataldo's new album, Keepers, at this "nerd prom" (complete with taffeta, spiked punch, and a photo booth) featuring the musical stylings of Portland-based band Wild Ones, DJ sets from Ben Gibbard (Death Cab for Cutie), Sharlese Metcalfe (KEXP), Marco Collins (Glamour and the Squalor), Chris Staples, and Kathleen Tarrant (The Stranger), and of course, a performance by Cataldo. Eric Grandy wrote that "Cataldo's 2008 album Signal Flare is a minor gem, full of simple guitar ballads, deft orchestral touches (the easy banjo picking and Sufjan-lite chorus on 'Black and Milds,' for instance), and patiently insistent songs."

Diet Cig, Lisa Prank, Jenn Champion
Pop-punk twosome Diet Cig are here to have fun, and will bless your evening with candy-colored vibes along with local favorites Lisa Prank and Jenn Champion.

The Helio Sequence with Guests
The Helio Sequence have always been masters of texture. Guitarist/singer Brandon Summers and drummer Benjamin Weikel began their career in the deep end of the sugary-sweet pop pool, amid sparkling synths, heavily effected vocals, and whizzing bleeps and bloops. Over time, however, the Portland band’s dreaminess has darkened and become more thoughtful, its layering more restrained, its effects more minimal. On its sixth self-titled album, the band feels like it’s settling into the apex of its career, balancing just the right amount of dark to light, quiet to loud. It sounds gorgeous. KATHLEEN RICHARDS

Kid Leather, Shit Ghost, Monsterwatch with Silas Blak, Peace & Red Velvet, and Wizdumb
I’m showing my age, but THIS lineup reminds me of how underground shows were once places for challenging our thinking and tastes by purposely mixing various and differing music styles. Like, before they became so codified and arranged by promoters looking to maximize profits! As for the show tonight, we’re getting local contemporary R&B and hiphop heat from Silas Blak, the duo Peace and Red Velvet, and Wizdumb in Lo-Fi’s front room, while in the back room Shit Ghost’s experimental sounds promise to bring “the most whimsical of the human mind to life,” the blazing scuzzy, noisy stomp of Kid Leather (tonight is the release party for their new album, Soft Machine), and sludge punk from Monsterwatch. MIKE NIPPER

FRIDAY-SUNDAY

Larry Carlton
Four-time Grammy-Awarded guitarist Larry Carlton claims music icons like Barney Kessel, B.B. King, and John Coltrane as his influences, and will showcase his decades of expertise-building in a three-night set.

Laura Marling with Valley Queen
On the basis of recent recordings, it would be easy to mistake Mercury Prize nominee Laura Marling for an American, but the British singer-songwriter is simply drawn to Southern cities, like Nashville, and country artists, like Dolly Parton. Semper Femina, her sixth studio album, draws on folk and pop influences from Nick Drake to Joni Mitchell, but if unruffled defines her demeanor, frustration roils beneath the surface, especially on “Wild Fire,” where she warns gas-lighters to step off. Unlike Marling, a veteran at 27, LA quartet Valley Queen are just getting started. Their new EP, Destroyer, fuses the torch and twang of Linda Ronstadt with the sturdy musculature of Heart. Natalie Carol is the kind of commanding frontwoman Marling has been championing for years. KATHY FENNESSY

LeRoy Bell with Erin Austin
Local singer-songwriter LeRoy Bell has risen through the ranks of the Seattle music scene with his smoky voice and command of rock, blues, and soul. He'll be joined by Erin Austin of OK Sweetheart.

Lupe Fiasco
Back in 2006, things were only looking up for rapper Lupe Fiasco. Signed to Atlantic Records by Jay Z and hyped by Kanye West as the next Kanye West, Chicago’s Fiasco rose from regional threat to national concern off the strength of that year’s Food & Liquor and a slew of singles that included the still-banging “Kick, Push.” His actual career has been considerably bumpier than his initial rollout. Over the past decade, he’s quit music multiple times—including as recently as last December—and publicly wrestled with his inner demons and major-label contract, but he keeps coming back with fire, and his fans have stuck with him through the highs and lows. Speaking of highs, this February saw him release the career highlight Drogas Light, which has been met with praise by critics and longtime fans alike. Expect a reenergized Lupe Fiasco to step up to the Neptune stage and put on his high-energy show. NICK ZURKO

Pond with Kirin J. Callahan
Aussie-brewed Pond are the redheaded stepchild of Tame Impala, featuring former and current members of that band (Nick Allbrook and Jay Watson, respectively), and churning out sounds that rely much more heavily on psychedelic experimentation, coated in elements of glam, garage, space, electro, and acid-washed pop and rock, and delivered in a looser and less digestible way than Tame Impala, but definitely more interesting and novel. According to Allbrook, upcoming seventh LP The Weather is “a concept album, not completely about Perth, but focusing on all the weird contradictory things that make up a lot of colonial cities around the world.” Its eponymous single is a lethargic astral projection full of swirling and shimmering synthesizers, while the fuzzy layered instrumental washes and driving propulsion of “Sweep Me Off My Feet” come studded with tinkling percussion and dreamy, soaring vocals. LEILANI POLK

Research: UMFANG
Coleader of the female- and genderqueer-empowering crew Discwoman, UMFANG (aka Brooklyn DJ/producer Emma Burgess-Olson) is one of the most interesting young techno artists in America. Based on the strength of her unconventional, melodic, and minimal techno releases on Vancouver’s respected 1080p label, UMFANG was one of the standouts of last year’s inaugural TUF Fest in Seattle. She returns to town previewing her upcoming album on Ninja Tune subsidiary Technicolour, Symbolic Use of Light, which displays UMFANG’s deft fusing of brainy and sensual elements within a techno context. Oddly, the lead track, “Weight,” comes off more like Burial’s profoundly gothic, morose, and desolate rim-shot symphonies than standard four-on-the-floor business. Whatever the case, we’re in for a strange treat from a rising star and catalyst for positive change in a male-dominated genre. DAVE SEGAL

Sofi Tukker
If you suffer from seasonal affective disorder (Seattle’s only mood-ring color), go see Sofi Tukker. The electro-pop and dance-music über-duo are fans of the overplayed palm leaf and toucan collage aesthetic, but for them it works, as they deftly link Brazilian energy, cumbia, and dancehall beats, and soothing, sultry vocals for a lush club sound (yes, I know music writers overuse that term, but it really applies). Even with the current oversaturation of certain island styles in music, especially in pop and electronica, it’s still extremely worth it to noodle around in a bunch of poolside soundscapes, mostly because it will be the only thing around here dragging your sad, tired ass into the warmer months. KIM SELLING

[untitled] 3
The endlessly fascinating late-night [untitled] series continues in the sparkling lobby, where people crowd on the floor, on the chairs, on the stairs, on the balconies—anywhere to hear performances of unexpected music. On the program this time are the twisted worlds of American cultural icons Andy Warhol and Thelonius Monk, and the ways their work in pop art and jazz were entwined in a larger social narrative across the country.

SATURDAY

Asphyx, Extremity, Hissing, Fetid Mortiferum
If death metal has a unique and valuable function, it’s that the music can create a space for listeners to contemplate their own mortality. When people ponder death, they often think of what that experience would be like from their own perspective. Slower death-metal groups such as Asphyx invite people to think about corporeal death. Singer Martin Van Drunen, in his pass-me-another-Parliament rasp, talks about the decaying of organic flesh. Morbid? Yes. And a bit much. But Asphyx never forget they are also a rock band, and their existential musings come delivered with mosh-pit momentum. Asphyx rarely tour the United States and have already broken up and re-formed once. Their mortuary gospel may not be spoken again in Seattle. JOSEPH SCHAFER

BowieVision with Purple Mane
The local tribute group Bowievision—featuring members of Dudley Manlove Quartet and Purr Gato, plus saxophonist Brian Bermudez—replicate as faithfully as they can the chameleonic British singer/songwriter’s hits, with a light show and video backdrops for bonus dazzlement. DAVE SEGAL

Devin the Dude, Jarv Dee, All Star Opera
There’s a strain of melancholy, Southern rap that bangs bluesily, utilizing chicken-scratch guitars, deep-fried organs, and sumptuous horns to tell bleary-eyed street tales and revel in sun-baked nostalgia. Think UGK’s first few albums, or the work of production team Organized Noize. It’s a lush, humid sound, and Houston’s Devin the Dude has pretty much perfected it over a decades-long career in the game. His sleepy drawl and penchant for hilariously kush-addled observations have afforded him a cult fan base many up-and-coming rappers would kill for, and his remarkable streak of good-to-great releases (from 2002’s Just Tryin’ Ta Live to his latest, One for the Road) suggest a quality control that may surprise you, given his nonchalance and chilled demeanor on record. I’d be remiss if I didn’t single out for special mention his track “Doobie Ashtray,” the most heartbreaking ballad about friends stealing your weed ever released. KYLE FLECK

Industrial Revelation, D’Vonne Lewis’ Limited Edition
The group has four members—D'Vonne Lewis (drums), Evan Flory-Barnes (bass), Josh Rawlings (keyboards), and Ahamefule J. Oluo (trumpet). All are trained primarily as jazz musicians and play in a number of jazz bands and venues around town. However, IR's 2013 album Oak Head makes it clear that when these four men make music together, they cannot be classified as a jazz band. IR have a sound that is not determined by one genre, but instead is overdetermined by multiple genres—hiphop, indie rock, punk, soul, and so on. But here is what makes IR truly unique and worthy of the status of Genius: Their mission as musicians is not to save jazz or to be relevant to younger audiences. Absent from their live shows and two albums is exactly that kind of desperation and scheming. What we hear instead are tunes composed and performed by four very talented musicians who are naturally, effortlessly, constantly inventive. CHARLES MUDEDE

Kansas
Forty years have passed since the '70s Kansas classic Leftoverture, so, natch, they're back to revamp the glory of its release with a full concert.

Kehlani, Ella Mai, Jahkoy, Noodles
Oakland-born R&B chanteuse Kehlani returns to Seattle for a non-Bumbershoot-related show (finally) with a night out flanked by Ella Mai, Jahkoy, and Noodles.

Sondre Lerche with Dedekind Cut
Electro-heavy sweetheart Sondre Lerche recently released Pleasures, an eerily sublime exercise in synth-pop rife with personal tragedy. They'll be joined by Dedekind Cut.

Suzi Analogue, SassyBlack, Taylar Elizza Beth, N SO
Hiphop experimentalist and ex-Klipmode member Suzi Analogue will headline this show with support from Stranger favorites SassyBlack, Taylar Elizza Beth, and N So.

Tim Kasher with Allison Weiss
Prolific rocker Tim Kasher has managed to push 17 LPs and EPs out into the world over the last two decades through his solo work, and as a part of his bands Cursive and The Good Life. Witness him switch up his sound for a live set in promotion of his third and latest solo album No Resolution alongside Allison Kreiss this weekend.

SUNDAY

The 1975
Manchester alt-rock revivalists and teen-favorites The 1975 come to Seattle with their North American spring tour.

Trap Them, Call Of The Void, Heiress, Wake Of Humanity
Music should be fun. But hardcore often grapples with balancing its grievous nature against its entertainment value. No wonder the pop positivity of Gorilla Biscuits made them one of the biggest bands of the genre. But while earnest nihilism might not be everyone’s idea of a good time, the emotional (and sometimes physical) bloodletting of a dark hardcore band like Trap Them can be far more gripping than the mosh-centric party vibes of bigger acts. There will be no sing-alongs tonight, no boogie-board crowd-surfing, and no smiling onstage. Instead, Trap Them will spew out their venomous hybrid of d-beat, grindcore, and early Swedish death metal while singer Ryan McKenney roars over acts of self-flagellation. If you want fun, go to a Turnstile show. If you want therapy, this is your night. BRIAN COOK

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