There are more than 100 local and touring bands playing on five stages during the three-day Capitol Hill Block Party this weekend, and they’re all on our Capitol Hill Block Party calendar, along with photos, video, and audio links. There are also a total of 52 bands recommended by Stranger critics. If all of those numbers overwhelm you, we’ve made it easy for you: Below is a list of the top 15 bands you really shouldn’t miss. And, as a special bonus, we’ve even made a Spotify playlist for you with these top picks (except for a couple local bands who are so cool they’re not even on Spotify, but you’ll find their Bandcamp pages below) to listen to as you prepare for Block Party. What more could you ask for? Other concerts to see in Seattle this week? We’ve got those, too. Other festivals that aren’t CHBP? Right here.
FRIDAY
1. Crystal Castles
Toronto duo Crystal Castles (Alice Glass and Ethan Kath) are one of the few popular ’00s electronic acts who are actually quite good. Their tracks typically alternate between dulcet, ethereal, melodic tunes and rambunctious synth-punk fuck-yous buttressed by end-of-their-tether bass lines. Crystal Castles are touring in support of their new slicker-than-expected, expansive album, III, whose main theme is, Kath says, “oppression,” so get ready to party hard, Seattle. DAVE SEGAL
2. DoNormaal
The local rapper of the moment creates a transporting sonic landscape. She’s plumbing the depths of her own brain and the expanse of the cosmos on a voyage through purple nebulae and synapses. “I don’t belieeeeeeeeeeve what’s in my miiiiiiiiiiiind,” she moans on “50 Jasper Horses,” the most haunting track on her excellent debut LP, Jump or Die. You’d be wise to follow DoNormaal wherever this journey is taking her. ANGELA GARBES
3. Head Wound City
The short-lived (but recently reunited) supergroup Head Wound City could’ve easily been a potpourri of the aforementioned bands’ non-punk musical interests of the time. Such a combination would have been interesting, though probably unlistenable. Instead, Head Wound City was a wild, petulant return to form, as if the members wanted another chance to beat their instruments bloody in a hardcore band. It wasn’t the most adventurous side project, but they raged just as hard as the early classics in their main gigs. BRIAN COOK
4. Iska Dhaaf
Seattle sometimes does things that aren’t so smart, but one thing it does exceedingly well is produce razor-sharp, intelligent bands. Iska Dhaaf (who, despite a move to NYC, will always be a Seattle group) make complex, subtle melodies, lusty rhythms, and lyrics sometimes inspired by Sufi poetry. KELLY O
5. Nail Polish
Seattle’s Nail Polish keep No Wave alive and scratching with sub-two-minute songs that exhilarate and exhaust you in equal measure. Scathing social commentary bubbling atop caustic sonics is a foolproof formula for maximal stimulation. DAVE SEGAL
SATURDAY
6. Car Seat Headrest
It feels strange that the prolific, amazing Car Seat Headrest isn’t a band you grew up with—although now that I see those words on the page I realize that lots of people at Capitol Hill Block Party may well be in the process of doing that even now, so I’ll just take my bifocals and lumbar discomfort and clear out of your way. Except to add that you’re lucky. I remember when there were lots of bands that sounded like they were born when a Tascam cassette four-track machine got drunk and seduced a crate full of impeccable post-punk and college rock classix, but that form appears to be on the wane. Car Seat Headrest has smart, anxious guitar music in its cells, its bones, its DNA. SEAN NELSON
7. Porter Ray
Once dubbed “the golden child” by Shabazz Palaces’ Ishmael Butler, the kid Porter Ray Sullivan is grown, and, as a matter of fact, has been older in spirit than his youthful face and shimmering soprano have let on all along. The late-20s Seattle MC compounds nocturnal ruminations on past traumas and altered toasts to the high life’s seductive mirage. “MLK, Rainier, shit just ain’t the same here/I fantasize of foreign flights, foreign women snortin’ white,” he raps on “Bless Me”—“may all my pain be champagne.” Ray has a lot to say, and a million ways to say it, and each verse he writes only lifts him toward the heights he dreams of. TODD HAMM
8. Steal Shit Do Drugs
It takes guts and smarts to make punk rock sound vital in 2016. On their debut EP, First Comes Money, the wild bucks in SSDD (Steal Shit Do Drugs) found a way to do just that, harnessing the libidinous whirlwind of Fun House-era Stooges, whoop-ass elements from Pussy Galore circa Right Now!, and channeling Flipper in Generic mode. SSDD are Seattle’s whirlwind arsonists of rock decorum. DAVE SEGAL
9. Ultimate Painting
So, you’re one of those people who reflexively dismiss all indie rock as corny? I get it. At least 88 percent of it is hopelessly soulless and pallid, much more about enervation than innovation. But there are exceptions. Barely perceptible nuances separate the must-listens from the ignorables, and sometimes it’s hard to articulate what distinguishes the former from the latter. Ultimate Painting belong to the minority of indie-rock bands you’d be wise to allow into your precious headspace. Their self-titled 2014 album lightly reveals the duo’s appreciation of the third Velvet Underground album and its many disciples. The chiming guitar and mellow, affecting white-guy vocals are strong with this group. Ultimate Painting gets by on artful understatement and tuneful songs that move you with a few gentle gestures. The 2015 follow-up, Green Lanes, offers clearer production while keeping the chime and jangle and the Teenage Fanclub-soft singing. Post-John Cale VU vibes still reign and the nonchalantly rollicking songwriting compels repeat listens. Corniness skillfully eluded. DAVE SEGAL
10. Wand
Much like the narwhal carried mythical significance for medieval Europeans (and had lasting influence well past Jules Verne’s 1870 maritime novel 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea), the psych-garage of Wand carries a magical and otherworldly presence with it. Frontman Cory Thomas Hanson’s haunting vocals and voluminous guitar chords take turns swallowing one another, and the listener is just along for the ride. “We just play all the songs really loud and bring a lot of amplifiers on tour so it’s inescapably loud, and you can hear the music in a totally different way,” Hanson once said in a interview. Expect—nay, demand—a portal to the netherworld. GRANT BRISSEY
SUNDAY
11. Absolute Monarchs
Seattle has a long history of underground rock music, and the now defunct post-punk and sludge hybrid outfit Absolute Monarchs were one of the most heavy, idiosyncratic, and sardonic bands of the Northwest. The Seattle four-piece hinted at elements of other bands—Chavez’s of guitar jangle and riffs, Torche’s doom pop, the Intelligence’s fractured skronk, and Jawbox’s proletariat post-hardcore. But despite these reference points, Absolute Monarchs didn’t really sound like anyone. The disparate bits and pieces they borrowed came together to create something unusual, something foreign. They recently reuinted to celebrate their label, Good to Die Records’ fifth anniversary. BRIAN COOK
12. CHARMS
A carnal bellowing was coming from the adjacent room of a subterranean Capitol Hill rehearsal space. The guitar, synths, and drums on the other side of the wall stirred a synth-punk cauldron of medicine-noise. I didn’t know who or what it was, but it swallowed me whole, the way a swarm of ants eats a jungle. A voice sang, fervent and possessed. The drums played like they were carving a glyph on the ancient Mayan stone sarcophagus beneath the Temple of the Inscriptions pyramid in Palenque, Mexico. (It depicts Pakal sitting in a fucking spacecraft, yet it was carved in the year 685.) I was powerless to do anything but listen, so I turned the lights off and lay on the floor until their rehearsal was over. When they finished, I knocked on their door and discovered the band Charms. Surprisingly, they weren’t covered in blood. TRENT MOORMAN
13. Clams Casino
The ascendant cloud-rap producer Clams Casino has laced melancholy, atmospheric cuts for Lil B, Main Attrakionz, Squadda B, the Jealous Guys, Deezy D, and Soulja Boy. DAVE SEGAL
14. SassyBlack
SassyBlack is one half of the now-defunct galactic powerhouse that was THEESatisfaction, and dropped her solo album this past May. Prepare your brain for a deep submergence in gorgeous afro-futuristic soul and the heart of one of the most talented musicians in Seattle right now. KIM SELLING
15. STRFKR
Portland’s STRFKR avoided becoming flash-in-the-pan indie stars and survived a brief name-change dispute by releasing solid, shimmering electro-pop albums Reptilians in 2011 and Miracle Mile in 2013, cementing their status as heavyweights of the Greater Northwest’s music climate. In a live setting, their synth/bass-heavy feel-good jams take on an even more party-friendly, everybody-get-down identity. There simply aren’t many other bands from the area better suited for providing a soundtrack to a mass of drunken revelers dancing their respective asses off than these guys. MIKE RAMOS
