(Highline) Back in the 1980s, the Bay Area was known for its thrash scene, but in more recent years, it’s also been associated with experimental black metal—bands like Botanist, Ludicra, and Deafheaven. San Francisco’s Hazzard’s Cure take their cues from both traditions, although their “blackened thrash” has gotten blacker and less thrashy over time. On their most recent release, an EP called The Ugly, that’s translated to furious drumming and tremolo picking broken up by triumphal riffs, galloping rhythms, and shouted vocals. It’s not as tinny and distorted as traditional black metal, but it’s also more, well, ugly and intense than your typical thrash outfit. On “A Body Amorphous,” a dizzying guitar intro gives way to ex-Ludicra vocalist Laurie Sue Shanaman’s blood-draining scream. Live, it’s gripping stuff. With Bell Witch and Sworn in Blood. KATHLEEN RICHARDS
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It’s always the right time to party with Wimps, the Seattle garage-punk trio who won pop-starved hearts with songs of napping, not having fun, and quitting crappy jobs with their awesome debut LP, Repeat (End of Time Records). The recently dropped Couches EP continues their prankish local basement legacy of catchy, three-minute poppy-punk blasts. Big Crux’s D. Boon–blessed herky-jerky funk-punk songs are the closest you will get to seeing Minutemen in Seattle in 2014, so I recommend just closing your eyes and freely flailing for this one. With Acapulco Lips’ summer-friendly (WAH-wah) garage-pop sweetness. Hollow Earth Radio, 8 pm, $5 suggested donation. BRITTNIE FULLER
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(Kirkland Performance Center) I’m not going to profess to be some expert on traditional Bangladeshi music, nor can I make the inane and potentially bogus claim that “Amjad Ali Khan is the Eric Clapton of sarod” (as much as I want to). No, I am but a humble music writer, versed primarily in mixtape rappers and weird techno, and from that vantage all I can tell you is this: The haunting, meditative rivulets of melody Khan conjures from his sarod (a sort of Indian lute) sound plaintive, joyous, mesmeric, and lucid all with equal measure, an aural sunstroke that fascinates and hypnotizes to no end. With that said, could I tell the difference between the Eric Clapton of the sarod and the Johnny Ramone of the sarod? Perhaps not. KYLE FLECK
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(Barboza) Perhaps emboldened by Slint’s lucrative comeback, California’s A Minor Forest have returned to the live circuit to cash in on our nation’s post-rock nostalgia boom. Although they were never as critically revered as Slint, AMF built a small, rabid cult following thanks to two enigmatically brilliant and angsty albums, Flemish Altruism (1996) and Inindependence (1998). Distinguished by odd song titles (“Jacking Off George Lucas,” “Look at That Car, It’s Full of Balloons,” etc.), these LPs feature rigorously poised tracks that generate exquisite tension-and-release scenarios… much like Slint, actually. AMF’s array of guitar tones—plangent, cantankerous, spectral, burly as a mothertrucker—have retained their luster, and the tunes still require a maniacal attention to detail to apprehend. Push your horn-rimmed spectacles up and nod your highbrow head—A Minor Forest are back! With Prizehog. DAVE SEGAL
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(Neptune) Some bands create psychedelic music as if they’d just read about it in a book and decided, “Hey, let’s take a stab at making some o’ that. Somefing to do, innit?” These groups’ psych rock has a studied, detached, generic tinge to it. That’s not to say all such bands in this vein aren’t worthwhile; it’s just that seasoned ears can tell when such music-making is a hobbyist activity and when it’s a pure artistic expression that has to be manifested. England’s Temples released an album in 2013 titled Sun Structures that triggers doubts that these Brits are part of the latter camp of musicians who exude psychedelia from every pore (think 13th Floor Elevators, Simply Saucer, Hovercraft, Black Dice, etc.). Rather, Temples are crafty replicators of tropes that have been time-tested to signify “psychedelia” without really convincing us that they’ve ever tripped or glimpsed the shining void of which Lennon sang in “Tomorrow Never Knows.” With Wampire. DAVE SEGAL
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(Tractor) Ever since Minutemen folded, Mike Watt has spent a career distancing himself from the short blasts of sound that defined that band. His latest venture, Il Sogno del Marinaio (roughly: “The Sailor’s Dream”), is his furthest departure yet. Along with players Stefano Pilia and Andrea Belfi, Watt explores everything from Caribbean textures to free jazz to spoken word to basic rock templates. Some endeavors are more successful than others. The spoken word wears thin quickly, as spoken word tends to do. But take, for example, their rendition of the 1943 ode to the French Resistance, “Partisan Song.” While it’s difficult to suck the life from that piece, here the trio interprets it sans lyrics—arguably the song’s most forceful component—and the performance carries an unmistakable weight. With Lite. GRANT BRISSEY
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(Chapel Performance Space) The Guardian put Susan Alcorn’s 2004 album Concentration on its list of the 101 strangest records on Spotify. I was going to say that the way she plays the pedal steel guitar, her chosen instrument since she was a kid—an electric guitar that sits on her lap, with pedals at her feet—is disorienting, like floating, while twang and Hawaii and jazz and Steve Reich sweep by in a stream. The pedal steel guitar is an odd bird of an instrument in the first place, but Alcorn takes it way out. The Guardian put it like this: “Frankly, trying to describe Alcorn’s music is a bit like trying to paint wind.” She’s joined by Seattle improvisational saxophonist Wally Shoup. JEN GRAVES
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(Tim’s Tavern) San Francisco power-poppers Modern Kicks have a song called “Sick of the Radio” whose chorus goes: “Waiting for something better/Looking for something more/It could be crawling right next to you/And it’s what you’re looking for.” Though this is a bit of a stretch, I think these lyrics may be a metaphor for the new idea of booking rock and punk shows at Tim’s Tavern in Greenwood. I mean, losing the Funhouse in 2012, the 2 Bit Tavern at the end of this month, and soon, possibly, Chop Suey, has created a terrible void for smaller touring bands and newer local bands. We need more midsize venues. And hey, what the hell, maybe Tim’s Tavern is exactly what we’re looking for. With the Knast, Hammered Satin, and Criminal Guitars. KELLY O
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And here’s all our recommended music events—tonight, tomorrow, and beyond!