It was around midnight last night when Hey Champ took the stage at dance club/rock venue Vice, which, while hardly late by SXSW standards, was still almost an hour-and-a-half after than the band’s initially set start time. Yet the room didn’t seem to mind too much, as the assembled crowd of attendees from widely ranging regions were clearly engaged by the Chicago synth-rock act. Hey Champ performed a number of selections unknown to anyone save most likely the band’s management, but with rumors of the trio’s long-awaited debut Star hitting in the near future, unfamiliarity shouldn’t be a problem for too much longer. What was familiar was Chicago club staple “Gold Dust Girl,” with the song both uniting and igniting the room, proving the track has legs outside its hometown. Live, Hey Champ come off markedly more organic than their available recorded output suggests, thanks in no small part to the upfront presence of Jon Marks’ drumming. But the outfit’s familiar synth sound remains well in play on cuts like the infectious “Neverest,” a track that, once Star hits, could very well be another room uniter.

-Jaime de’Medici
Jaime de’Medici will be reporting in live from this year’s SXSW music festival. Watch for more micro-updates on Chicago artists playing showcases this year.

Chicago came at Austin hard on Wednesday afternoon, with a hyper-kinetic set from Kid Sister at the glam-dive Beauty Bar. Throughout her set, the local rapper alternated between playful and heavy, switching from hamming it up to serious juking on a moment’s notice. The MC tore through selections like “Control” and “Pro Nails” off last year’s Ultraviolet, but also brought a strong Chicago sound to the crowd with tracks like “I’ll House You” and “Switchboard,” the latter of which found Kid Sister dropping her mic to bust out some rapid-fire moves. The Chicago Beauty Bar opens later this month, so it will be interesting to see what kinds of performances the local location brings in.

-Jaime de’Medici
Jaime de’Medici will be reporting in live from this year’s SXSW music festival. Watch for more micro-updates on Chicago artists playing showcases this year.

“We know why we’re here, so let’s stop fucking around.” With that Dave Mustaine declaration, Megadeth launched into “Holy Wars . . . The Punishment Due” and Tom Araya was immediately forgiven for the American Carnage tour.

That tour would have (and still will: August 20th in Chicago) united Slayer, Megadeth, and Testament in a monumental cross-country ass beating. Dates were announced, storylines hyped (Will Kerry King and Mustaine get along?), magazine cover stories written (Decibel), and fans were ready to thrash. Then, Araya’s back gives out, he goes under the blade, and American Carnage is done before it starts. Mustaine, though, felt carnage was still in order so decides to play Rust In Peace – Megadeth’s skull-blowing 1990 masterpiece – in its entirety. Testament and Exodus are nabbed for openers, and Testament is convinced to play The Legacy in its entirety. And, just when you think the magic show is over, original bassist David Ellefson appears out of thin air. Suck it, Slayer!

Slayer and Megadeth together? That shit is sooooo 1991. It has happened already, and it will still happen – might even happen again if whispers of a Big Four tour are valid. Rust In Peace in its entirety? This could be once in a lifetime, brothers and sisters.

That said, imagine the frustration pang that trickled through the – seated?! – crowd in Indy as Megadeth’s first notes didn’t belong to “Holy Wars.” For whatever reason, the band opened with a threesome of pre-R.I.P. tunes, but it’s tough to be upset about “Set The World Afire” (Fuckin’ A!), “Wake Up Dead” (Nice), and “In My Darkest Hour” (“Hook In Mouth” would have been preferred on this special occasion, but “Darkest” is cool too), especially when torn through with the ferocity Megadeth employed.

Maybe that initial trio of songs was simply a warm-up? Rust is, after all, a ruthless drillmaster that demands the utmost dexterity and endurance from its players. Thankfully, 20 years (and 20 members?) later Megadeth is still up to the task. Sure, Mustaine’s vocals were hit (“Tornado Of Souls,” “Take No Prisoners”) and miss (“Five Magics,” “Rust In Peace . . . Polaris”), there were technical flaws (sounded like that JFK International air-traffic controller let his kids run the mixing console), and Mustaine’s-new-favorite-Megadeth-guitarist-ever, Chris Broderick, flubbed a few solos. In defense, though, no 48-year-old sings like he did when he was 29, P.A. issues happen, and those guitar solos were written by Marty fucking Friedman.

Besides, a theater full of fanatics was available for backup anytime Mustaine stumbled. Plus, minor flaws just didn’t matter. A majority of the audience had never seen “Poison Was The Cure,” “Lucretia,” or even “Five Magics” live. If Mustaine marched out with Dude From White Lion on bass and ran through average versions of those songs, it would have been cool. The fact Ellefson was back and the band ripped through pretty-goddamn-good – occasionally blazing – versions was icing. There’s a reason “Holy Wars” will always be on Megadeth’s playlist, and that’s because it’s the most perfect song the band ever recorded. The album that carried it also happens to be the most perfect record Megadeth ever recorded, and to witness it executed in its full-shredding, start-to-finish glory onstage is a privilege for even a casual fan.

The whole thing was such a whirlwind of awesomeness it hardly seemed so when Mustaine said “That was Rust In Peace” and vanished off stage. The group came back, of course, but the proverbial wad had been blown. The band began the next half hour with “Headcrusher,” a song just as clunky and awkward – it even fell flat in Indiana – as the President Obama jab Mustaine used to introduce it. But not even “Trust” could tarnish the show Megadeth put on before and after (“Symphony Of Destruction” and “Peace Sells”) that horrible, horrible song. Megadeth isn’t the Megadeth of 1990. (Or ‘92. Or ‘94. Not even ‘97), but in Indianapolis, it still devastated. And terminated. And denigrated. And permeated. 

You get the idea.

– Trevor Fisher

A show that could have been billed AcoustiKinks ambled along smoothly if unexceptionally on Saturday night, until Ray Davies remembered from whence he came.

See more photos at www.illinoisentertainerphoto.com

It wasn’t as if Davies (pronounced Davis, for you Notre Damers) was oblivious; no, the former Kinks frontman sarcastically dedicated a portion of his set to “Soundtrack Kinks,” cheerfully knocking off cuts that have appeared in various motion pictures over the years. But, seated and mostly acoustic with a sole accompanist for 90-percent of the proceedings, his cheeky self-awareness did let him down as he unironically bashed Abba’s Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame election from his rocking chair.

The treat, however, of a Davies show is that his songs (for American audiences at least) aren’t as over-trodden as those of his ’60s contemporaries. Where “I Saw Her Standing There” and “Sympathy For The Devil” lose meaning with each play, set opener “This Is Where I Belong,” “I Need You,” and “See My Friends” (recently revived on the Kinks Choral Collection) feel like intimate sessions, old songs dug out of the trunk for a campfire play. That’s not to suggest a quaint atmosphere (a thousands-strong assembly of 40-year-olds can hardly be called quaint), as the anthemic “Victoria” and “Sunny Afternoon” powered through.

Still, as the evening wore on, a sense of too-much-ease began to overwhelm. Davies has come off as charmingly cantankerous in some interviews, and the fact of this loll was beginning to feel like a round of knock-knock jokes with John Lydon. The “soundtrack” portion had barely ended, however, when the big (rather, smaller) guitars came out and instantly the chords to “All Day And All Of The Night” rang out. Suddenly, an earlier acoustic bid at “You Really Got Me” was demolished by a distorted version, then “David Watts” . . . fa-fa-fa-fa fa fa fa fa!

– Steve Forstneger

That Scout Niblett can make a recording so similar to PJ Harvey’s first two albums and have it be one of her most accessible really says something. Good thing they aren’t too similar, though.

The Calcination Of Scout Niblett (Drag City) has a lot, sonically, in common with Dry and Rid Of Me, right down to the guitar tone (not to mention Steve Albini). But where Harvey frequently had a full band at her disposal, Niblett toughs it out with mostly just her axe over 11 tracks. Thankfully, her minimalism doesn’t make for a restrained performance, though she channels her energy elsewhere than the primitive meltdowns that have in turn climaxed and plagued earlier work. It’s the sort of shift that makes you think you know more about an artist, when really she’s finding out for herself.

Picastro opens.

– Steve Forstneger

While sure to upset a lot of bands (if not only because it calls them “emo”), “emo’s just a phase” is both true for a lot of youngsters as well as being to blame for some missed career transformations.

When The Appleseed Cast first dropped The End Of The Ring Wars in 1998, it arrived at the end of an era sprung by Sunny Day Real Estate, which included Jimmy Eat World and Mineral. The very same year, a reunited SDRE released the prog-ambitious How It Feels To Be Something On, and sad boys everywhere were forced to move on.

Including The Appleseed Cast. Friday’s show will concentrate on the two-volume Low Level Owl albums, which caught the band in mid metamorphosis. Instead of harassing, Fugazi-esque guitars, things tend to drone and drums and atmosphere take hold. Vocalist Christopher Crisci still offered the odd notebook scribbling du jour, but even he seemed more concerned with drifting in and out sonically than actually winning back the girl. Where SDRE’s script traced Radiohead and even Yes, AC tracked through disc after disc of shoegaze, quoting My Bloody Valentine here, and drawing bloody kisses there. Both volumes will be played in their entirety.

Dreamend open.

– Steve Forstneger

Disregarding their vampiric, L.A.’s Jesus & Mary Chain looks, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club have worn a surprising number of hats in their underrated career.

Part of that might be because they’re not from Los Angeles, but the Bay Area. But since debuting in ‘01 they’ve been careful not to hammer out an identity by treading ruts in the same stretch of road. Howl was easily their most striking and unexpected album, combining Southern-gothic rusticity, alt-rock angst, and 3 a.m., back-alley loneliness that never quite made their leather jackets extraneous.

Where BRMC have struggled is in making straightforward records — of which they’ve made two: The first buried the momentum built by their debut and the second, 2007’s Baby 81 sank Howl’s promise. This spring’s Beat The Devil’s Tattoo doesn’t try to break their succession of breakthrough/dud/breakthrough/dud, but seems to be an attempt to correct Baby 81’s ills. For the most part it’s successful, having not only focus but some of the goods to back it up. “Bad Blood” and the acoustic “Sweet Feeling” rank among the band’s best work, though there’s still cause for worry, as an ape of Coldplay’s “Politik” (easy to spot) affirms.

Opener Band Of Skulls risked repelling people with a White Stripes homage opening last year’s Baby Darling Doll Face Honey (Shangri-La); listeners smart enough to stick around were treated to an amalgam of co-ed garage rock styles. The album’s willingness to vie for radioplay is actually what gives it personality, though the Anglo-folk “Honest” might be too far off the path. “Death By Diamonds & Pearls,” “Fires,” and the well-schooled “Patterns” point to roads better taken.

– Steve Forstneger

Now’s your chance to win two passes to the Chicago viewing of Tool frontman Maynard James Keenan’s film documentary on March 25th.

Blood Into Wine, showing at the Music Box on Southport between Waveland and Grace, chronicles how Keenan and business partner Eric Glomski brought their vineyard to life in Northern Arizona. The film also features a number of actors and comedians including Milla Jovovich, Patton Oswalt, Eric Wareheim, Tim Heidecker, and Bob Odenkirk.

To enter, simply e-mail ed [at] illinoisentertainer.com what you think our favorite Tool song is, and we’ll give the winners closest to our top 3 the victory. Entry is limited to a single person from the combination of any one e-mail/home/or IP address. Contest ends Wednesday, March 23rd.

Although The Black Dahlia Murder has generally been described as a blend of melodic death meal with a heavy European black metal influence, the emphasis has been on traditional blast beats and rapid-fire riffs.

On its latest Deflorate (Metal Blade), however, the Waterford, Michigan quintet punctuates its brutally aggressive sound with stronger, brighter melodic strains. “Necropolis” and “A Selection Unnatural” highlight the dark complexity and twisted lyrical morbidity. Don’t expect the pummeling live show to be any less torturous, though. Drummer Shannon Lucas drives the rhythms with metronomic precision, as he pounds his kit with kinetic fury and relentless energy, and equally astonishing is witnessing vocalist Trevor Strnad shift his voice upside down from a guttural growl to searing, raspy howl in a flip of syllable. With an impressive history of festival appearances, TBDM has honed its live sound to mammoth, gut-wrenching proportions, so this is special opportunity to see it in an intimate club venue.

Obscura, Augury, and Hatesphere open.

– Patrick Conlan

When treated as concerts, televised band performances can be a mixed bag. It would be all too easy for artists to treat such a venture as little more than a promotional exercise, one that doesn’t “count” and ends up more phoned-in than anything. Which is what made last night’s Empires event all the more exciting, as the Chicago act was clearly playing for keeps at its “JBTV” soundstage event.

Performing behind the group’s just-released Bang EP, Empires took to a surprisingly plush studio stage, flanked by red curtains and blue backdrops, to deliver an impression-making seven songs. While Chicago has no shortage of guitar-driven rock acts, the group’s set last night proved Empires make use of warm tones in their songs the way few bands do, evident in the nocturnal and buzzing “Spit The Dark.” By comparison, other selections proved far more frenzied, seen in frontman Sean Van Vleet leading a fiery rendition of the band’s new EP’s title track.

Yet for all the group’s impressive guitar work throughout the soundstage set, it was drummer Ryan Luciani who proved to be the outfit’s not-so-secret weapon, a man possessed during “Bang,” while noticeably enhancing “I Want Blood” off 2008’s Howl. Between the strength of the group’s new material and the fire in their bellies even performing for a crowd 50 taping attendees, Empires stand poised to make big moves in 2010. With passion like this, it could very well happen.

– Jaime de’Medici

This will make you feel old: It’s been 18 years since House Of Pain’s “Jump Around” was a hit single. Eighteen years. Seriously! (It’s been 13 since Notorious B.I.G. was killed!)  So who cares about a HOP reunion now? This guy.

I still remember the day I bought Same As It Ever Was. I was staying with a friend at his grandmother’s in Oskaloosa, Iowa. Osky – for short – is a stinking cesspit of teenage despair in south-eastern Iowa. The only things for kids to do is fuck, fight, drink, smoke, swim, and go to the mall. Even so, that was a significant improvement over my hometown, as we had no shopping mall. Or outdoor pool, come to think of it. Anyway, it was a horrible three days of overflowing colostomy bags, bad breath, worse body odor, and detasseling corn. It was that Oskaloosa mall, though, where I bought Everlast, Danny Boy, and DJ Lethal’s second record, an album that, to this day, gets a fuckload of play in the Fisher home.

That home, if you wondered, is a luxurious – people tell me – four-bedroom, 3.5-bath condo in that building Oprah lives in. Winfrey’s more into HOP’s self-titled debut (we chat music while waiting for our drivers to bring the cars; Stedman only listens to “True Icelandic Black Metal” or some bullshit, she says) and probably for good reason: “Jump Around.” Those bagpipe samples still get played in Pringles commercials and sports arenas every day, but the thing is, House Of Pain did have a career after that song. 1996’s Truth Crushed To Earth Shall Rise Again was ignored by pretty much everybody (blame the awful title), but its predecessor, Same As It Ever Was, is certified gold, which defends the group against any one-album-wonder criticism. And of course, there’s always the “white rapper” thing. Pre-Eminem, white dudes in hip-hop were like black dudes in hockey: few and far between. House Of Pain weren’t the first caucasians to earn respect as “rappers” instead of “white rappers” (the Beasties, obviously), but alliances with Cypress Hill (Muggs produced HOP’s first two albums), Ice-T (Everlast came up as a member of Rhyme Syndicate), Divine Styler, and Gang Starr helped it appeal to audiences outside fraternity row.

The past is the past, though. The whole point is House Of Pain has reunited (technically the real reunion was on last year’s A Brand You Can Trust by La Coka Nostra, a hip-hop supergroup that includes all three HOPsters), and the 15-year-old Trevor, whose parents wouldn’t let him see the HOP/Cypress Hill/Funkdoobiest tour back in the day, will finally witness his favorite hip-hop group live in concert. I’ve already received my wife’s permission, even.

La Coka Nostra, Gza, Mass Hysteria, and The Come Ups open.

– Trevor Fisher

Solo singer/songwriter Kentuckians get semi-Appalachian on songs bemoaning the mining destruction of the homestate’s environment.

‘Cuz otherwise Ben Sollee and Daniel Martin Moore couldn’t stand the sight of each other. Not true. Still, you could probably launch tactical nuclear weapons in a 20-mile, bluegrass radius in Kentucky without finding someone willing to concede there are environmental issues afoot. The thrust of this spring’s Dear Companion is not only a shared love of regional roots music (though there’s plenty of that), but also a loathing of mountain-top removal (MTR), a controversial mining technique that’s doing all sorts of heinous things to people who live in mining regions. “Only A Song” pretends to dismiss activist music, though anyone who hears it — especially in the context of the album — will know better.

This is a separate ticketed performance from Tributosaurus, earlier in the evening. Also appearing Saturday the 13th at Schubas in Chicago.

– Steve Forstneger

Click here to download “Something, Somewhere, Sometime.”

Billy Corgan’s bassist Ginger Pooley has left Smashing Pumpkins to concentrate on raising a family, which creates an obvious void. Before you clamor for “D’Arcy!!,” Corgan’s going to the fans.

Because he found his drummer, Mike Byrne, this way, the Great Pumpkin will request audition tapes and materials to be sent via e-mail for bassists and keyboardists. Deadline for submissions is March 31st. Send to pumpkinsbass [at] gmail.com or pumpkinskeys [at] gmail.com. Note: Only musicians with video clips can be considered. Youtube.com type posts are perfect–that’s how Mike was found.”

Chris Otepka began Heligoats during his tenure in Troubled Hubble, an Elburn-based band whose reams of critical praise didn’t amount to much commercial success.

Though he now lives around the PacNorthwest, the TH sound is very much alive on Heligoats’ second Greyday album, Goodness Gracious. Where 2008’s The End Of All Purpose felt like a willfully disobedient Built To Spill album, Goodness relaxes and puts a lot of faith in Otepka’s hooks. Working with Chicago’s folk/poppers Ulysses S. Grant, the production is relaxed and lushed, unafraid to supplant crunchy, power-pop chords with a couple of acoustics. Otepka’s natural vocal timbre might lead some to believe this is another Long Winters album, though “Fishsticks” and the title track find them firmly in the company of I-5 neighbors Blitzen Trapper.

Robert Sarazin Blake and Amy Saraiya open.

– Steve Forstneger

Click here to download “Fish Sticks.”

By all reasonable accounts – ignoring the kinds of people who insist Mastodon’s Remission is better than Leviathan – High On Fire’s 2007 Death Is This Communion is its magnum opus. That’s partly because High On Fire is High On Fucking Fire and doesn’t bother with shit that doesn’t rule and partly because of the Oakland trio’s collaboration with Jack Endino, whose organic, epic, raw-but-never-rough production helped that shit rule even more.

Appearing: Friday, April 2nd at Lincoln Hall in Chicago.

HOF’s newest – fifth overall – album is an interesting proposition then because Endino doesn’t return. The group used a different producer on each of its past four efforts, so it’s hardly unexpected, but Snakes still sort of feels like a lost opportunity because of the switch to Greg Fidelman (who kiiiiinda sucked on the last Slayer, too). He doesn’t ruin the album, but his dry, punchless production and awkward, clumsy mixing – shame on you, too, Don Gordon – doesn’t do the material any favors. Frontman/guitarist Matt Pike is a bona fide Bad Motherfucker (it surely says so on his wallet), so Fidelman can be excused for bumping up Pike’s carton-of-Reds-and-bottle-of-Beam howl and enormous, genre-defining guitar in the mix some, but too often his fascination with Pike makes him lose track of bassist Jeff Matz and skinsman Des Kensel (a powerhouse and mood-establishing drummer) altogether. Recording 101: A power trio is only as powerful as each member of the trio.

But the thing is, Fidelman’s grandmother could have produced Snakes. Wouldn’t of mattered. High On Fire is on top of every aspect of its game right now. “How Dark We Pray” proves Pike, Matz, and Kensel’s songwriting continues to evolve; “Ghost Neck” proves Pike’s guitar can save them when it regresses; “Bastard Samurai” proves HOF can play slow(er) without sacrificing impact; and “Fire, Flood & Plague” proves sometimes it best to just go as fast as possible. Snakes has moments ( Pike’s blood-boiling “repelled” screams on the title track and the building intensity of “Bastard Samurai,” for example) literally capable of spreading goose bumps. Those are the times   you listen, lean back in your chair, close your eyes, and think “Holy shit.”

Does it have as many of those instances as “Communion”? No. But Communion could very well be a once-in-a-career album, so in this case there’s no shame in releasing a follow-up that’s only slighty less mindblowing. 

– Trevor Fisher

For all the grumbling that Alkaline Trio have strayed from the rawer sound present on the act’s initial outings, the three-man punk outfit don’t seem to have any trouble getting bodies out to see them.

Appearing: February 27 and 28 at Metro in Chicago.

The group hit Metro this weekend for two sold-out shows in support of their latest effort, the just-released This Addiction. The record is somewhat of a return to form for the Trio, underplaying the over-polished power-pop sensibilities present on the group’s last few efforts (2008’s Agony & Irony and 2005’s Crimson). Instead, This Addiction plays it comparably straight, with short bursts of rough and repeating riffs propelling “Off The Map” and “Lead Poisoning,” while the group expand the formula on the synth-backed “Eating Me Alive.” Of course, die-hards are no doubt eagerly anticipating selections from the group’s early catalog.

– Jaime de’Medici

To many artists and music fans, Dr. Wax was a Chicago institution. While the local record-store chain lost two locations up North in recent years — one in Edgewater and the other in Evanston — the impact wasn’t felt quite like the announcement of the closing of its last branch in Hyde Park this month.

Dr. Wax’s connection with independent acts and its supporters alike is largely what built such a loyal following– it was the willingness to give lesser-known talent a chance to sell work even if they didn’t have a big distributor or label behind them. And often, it was simply a place to hang out.

Many of the same artists who were connected to the store throughout the years will help pay respect to the Dr. Wax tradition in a concert dubbed “A Final Goodbye.” The show brings a respectable mix of established and up-and-coming indie hip-hop/soul talent to the table, including jazz-leaning producer/MC Thaione Davis, true-school vets All Natural, and Atlanta-by-way-of-Chicago rhymer Rita J; U.K.-based vocalist Julie Dexter will also appear on stage.

Coincidently, Chicago will be saying goodbye to another South-Side great, JP Chill of WHPK-FM (88.5), who recently retired after years of spinning hip-hop and helping to pave the way for college radio locally; this concert is also a dedication to his influential contributions.

– Max Herman

Why is this man smiling? No clue. Singer/songwriter Rocky Votolato — if his work is any gauge — has lost just about every love-based battle he’s fought, something that hasn’t changed for True Devotion (Barsuk), out this week.

Maybe he’s itching to get out on the road, a chance to put a band behind songs that are packed with acoustic forlornness in the studio. Devotion fits neatly within his catalog drawer, which isn’t to say it’s depressing but even movie producers figured out that at some point Rocky has to win. Opening with a grey cloudscape of strings, the sky breaks only to reveal Votolato alone with his guitar on “Lucky Clover Coin.” “Fragments” and “Eyes Like Static” bring scrappy Rocky to the plate, a reminder of what Ryan Adams was like when he thought it mattered, and seem the likeliest candidates for The Replacements treatment live. But in times like these (fourth albums), you seek more than refinement of a craft. No one’s asking for Dark Side Of The Moon, maybe just a little less Dark Side.

Smoking Popes’ Josh Caterer opens.

– Steve Forstneger

Click here to download “Red River.”

It’s invoked to be provocative, but with an album as good as Genuine Negro Jig (Nonesuch) you almost wonder if Carolina Chocolate Drops have done their music a disservice by drawing attention away from it.

Purposefully exploring black, string-band roots, Genuine Negro Jig can very definitely be interpreted as a slap at white hipsters who’ve waded in these pools for years, and can also lead to charges of racism — not necessarily against whites, but, as a Newsweek article put it, insisting blacks have a downtrodden “authenticity” unavailable to the “overcivilized.” No matter your position, anything resembling bluegrass is generally attributed to white, mountain musicians and CCD faithfully dredge up an overlooked history. If any branch of Southern music has any attribute, it’s a mix of cultures.

It’s a discussion easy to offend and rife with peril, so you can see how easily it is to forget the music within. For their replication, CCD went with Joe Henry (Solomon Burke, Elvis Costello) if you need proof they’re not militant about this. The album does Sarah Vaughn-like torch songs with “Why Don’t You Do Right?” and front-porch woodshedding (“Trouble In Your Mind”), yet they’re skilled enough to even make Blu Cantrell’s 2001 single “Hit ‘Em Up Style (Oops!)” feel like a period piece. The band sound a perfect fit for FitzGerald’s, so much you could probably paint a mural of the concert without having seen it.

They also play Sunday at Schubas.

– Steve Forstneger

Tinariwen are exactly the sort of guitar band who you feel could break Joe America’s skittishness toward “world” music, yet stand in their own way. The title of their fourth album translates to “companions,” which suggests an unfortunate, one-world Benetton pretense. If people only stayed to find out what’s meant by “one world.”

Heck, mentioning that Robert Plant and Bono are big fans is as much of a diss as a boon, just something for those fans to abide while begging for “Where The Streets Have No Name” a gazillionth time. But Tinariwen are slowly beginning to make headway — thanks somewhat to the rise of West African guitar playing in modern rock — by being insularly aggressive and sounding completely original. Granted, their desert rock (the members are former nomads; Tinariwen is the Tuareg/Tamashek word for “the deserts”) bears the hallmarks of Muslim chant though the dirty tones of their amplifiers picks up every gritty snap and pop, with elliptical, otherworldly licks enveloping your ears like a suffocating sandstorm.

And that’s not all.

Formed in the late ’70s, Tinariwen never set out to achieve fame but consolidate scattered, nomadic folk songs and incorporate their politics. Tribalism is still very real in West Saharan Africa, and Tinariwen’s people aren’t high on the list of priorities for those who govern Mali, Algeria, and Libya. So there’s an agitated resistance underlying Imidiwan, which begins by asking if the end of oppression and the onset of revolution are near. “Where there is a coward, find him among the men/With your eyes, let him know how little you respect him,” commands “Tenhert,” while “Tamodjerazt Assis” reads like something a Taureg Ian MacKaye would have penned for a bizarro Minor Threat. “Tahult In” is performed like an Arab Strap song, without any allusions to drunken, Glasgow weekends, and “Tenalle Chegret” gets to the heart without embellishment: “I’m ready to die, my rifle and I.”

– Steve Forstneger

Those concerned by the inherent radio friendliness of “One Way Road” – the first single from the John Butler Trio’s forthcoming album, April Uprising — can breathe easy. Using Monday night’s sold-out show at Lincoln Hall as a gauge, the songs populating the band’s fifth studio release retain Butler’s unwavering positivity and mind-blowing dexterity on the guitar while appealing to those who fall just outside the jam-band circuit. 

The two hour show (the first Windy City stop since a main-stage appearance at Lollapalooza in 2008) served as both a sneak preview of Butler’s latest compositions and an introduction to the band’s revamped lineup after the departures of drummer Michael Barker and bassist Shannon Birchall. 

JBT 2.0 is a leaner, more focused machine. Obvious crowd favorites “Daniella” and “Zebra” still cause asses to shake and expand consciousnesses, but the solos don’t meander. From the near-metal ending of “Treat Yo Mama” (if Twisted Sister incorporated the didgeridoo into its repertoire) to a hippie’s version of Gregorian chant to close out “Better Man,” the Australian trio self-edits to highlight the songwriting craft instead of getting off on hearing itself play.

Compared to the generic bounce of “One Way Road,” new tune “Revolution” teeters between menace (thanks to drummer Nicky Bomba’s mallet-heavy beats and Byron Luiters’ galloping bass) and unsettling euphoria (courtesy of an underlying, high-pitched space odyssey loop created by Butler). “Johnny’s Gone” keeps it strictly acoustic and political, accented by steel drum flourishes while “Ragged Mile” sounds like a banjo-infused distant cousin of Rusted Root’s “Ecstasy.”

Relieved of his lengthy dreadlocks and sporting a shorn ‘do, Butler used the rare, intimate setting to pepper in stories about seeking permission from his future father-in-law for his daughter’s hand in marriage and how the frigid Chicago temperatures nearly castrated him, while long-standing familiar elements remained in place from the epic solo instrumental “Ocean” to the all-encompassing group sing-along at the end of “Peaches & Cream.”

A monumental “Funky Tonight” found all three members banging away on drums like regular cast members of “Stomp” and clearly enjoying each other’s company based on the goofy grin plastered across Butler’s face. The band makes a return engagement with a summer gig planned at the Riviera, which should expand this thinking-man’s party.

– Janine Schaults

As someone who’s accustomed to playing arenas, seeing Mariah Carey in a theater setting could either be interpreted as a rare, intimate treat for die-hards or an indication that she can’t quite sell as many tickets anymore. Sure, two sold-out nights at the Chicago Theatre aren’t anything to sneeze at, but considering she used to top out the United Center, it’s certainly several-thousand fans shy of her 1990s peak.

Apparently though, Carey never got the memo this was supposed to be a smaller tour, as she descended from the ceiling on a swing, encircled by three male dancers who promptly removed the bottom portion of her ruffled gold dress. And with the skirt version of that same outfit, Carey strutted with sass throughout the pulsating beats of “Shake It Off” accompanied by a fleet of dancers, background singers, and band members on the double-decker platform and LCD screen that almost touched the venue’s ceiling.

Across the next 100 minutes, several sides of the diva’s personality came out, starting with the sleazy (“Touch My Body”), then the awkward transition to the spiritual (“Fly Like A Bird” and “Make It Happen”), to the booming balladeer (“Angels Cry,” dedicated to Haiti). Right around that time, the singer quipped “I don’t like these champagne glasses very much,” living up to her difficult reputation, but apparently it wasn’t enough of a problem to take some “splashes” of the sparkling drink.

Less than five minutes later, she called for her hair and make-up artists to come out for an emergency touch up, though Carey assured everyone she’s a down-to-earth girl in real life and merely had to live up to her reputation. “If they’re gonna call me a diva, I might as well act like one,” she joked, inciting a hearty round of cheers that was taken even higher when kicking into the acoustic oldie “Always Be My Baby.”

Clearly Carey’s older songs earned the most feverish reception, while anything from her lackluster new album, Memoirs Of An Imperfect Angel (Island/Def Jam), was shrugged off with indifference. The booty ballad “The Impossible” was dedicated to husband Nick Cannon (who was apparently in attendance but never showed his face), though it was an absolutely predictable snore, while the clubby “Obsessed” sounded like self-parody.

Another error came in the decision to have background singer Trey Lorenz tip his hat to Michael Jackson via “Rock With You,” which was fine, but a confusing choice considering he originally cut a cover of “I’ll Be There” with Carey that they performed on the late King Of Pop’s televised memorial service. At least she was much more clever when covering Diana Ross’ “Love Hangover,” mashed up with her own “Heartbreaker” in all its throwback-disco glory.

Countless costume changes later, Carey finally showed off her best asset (an unwavering voice), thanks the multiple-octave jumping “Emotions” and the comeback cut “We Belong Together.” However it was the schmaltzy, if not her signature song “Hero” that truly showed off those sterling pipes, which even with ebbing popularity, is a quality that no one will ever be able to take away.

– Andy Argyrakis

Looking back, Wild Beasts could have gotten away with about anything on their debut, Limbo, Panto (Domino). One unhinged instrument sounds even less controlled when the rest of the orchestra moves in time, so why not air them all out?

Now that we’re familiar with this wobbly wheel, it’s difficult to decide whether the English band’s 2009 album, Two Dancers, really is much tamer or just not as freshly uncompromising as its elder. It’s no Steve Tyrell cozy-cozy fest, but clearly decisions were made whereby vocalist Hayden Thorpe would be given less to flights (of fancy, of imminent disaster) and the band could forge an identity outside of his pseudo-operatic jaunts.Dancers feels like a drummer’s album, as shifts and pacing dictate all that comes with it. With spacious, post-punk guitars and anchored basslines, it’s the most satisfyingly trap-propelled indie-rock album since Interpol’s Turn On The Bright Lights. Just with a really wacky frontman. And much better lyrics than “The subway is a porno.”

Still Life Still open both nights.

– Steve Forstneger

Click here to download “All The King’s Men.”

No one cares about it, but my love/hate affair with El Perro Del Mar’s music has been documented on this site. Icy, repellant, a feast for Kate Bush fans — she’s upsetting but compellingly sure of her direction.

El Perro, a.k.a. undernourished Swede Sarah Assbring, has made a career of being the polar opposite of any musician placed beside her. In 2008, this proclivity came to a hilt on tour with debutante Lykke Li, whose opening sets made like Abba warming up for a prison camp-famished Leonard Cohen. Her appearance coordinates with her output like a solid-color jacket liner, an androgynous form with the opaque emotionality of a German art film or Anton Chekhov play.

Now all bets are off. Last year’s Love Is Not Pop (Control Group) doesn’t wander too far from her Bush and later Talk Talk roots, but enough to inject a danceability and invite remixes to make it a gamebreaker. Though she still doesn’t come out in the sunlight, the nightclub is a surprisingly natural fit for her (just as it is for Tracy Thorn). “Change Of Heart” might be the best non-club jam you didn’t hear last year.

Taken By Trees opens.

– Steve Forstneger

Click here to download Robyn’s “Change Of Heart” remix.

It’s hard to imagine Blade Runner zealots — what with the bleak fate of the world and all — being big dance-music fans, but if they were, Vitalic would rate pretty highly.

With his second album under the pseudonym, Pascal Arbez doesn’t suffer Eurobeat Ibiza types. Flashmob (PIAS) isn’t quite the buzzsaw 2005’s OK Cowboy was, but its industrial-like intensity will have you sweating not from plain, aerobic motion, but fear. Even when he lets up, like on “Allan Dellon,” knowing another apocalyptic screamer is around the corner doesn’t provide much relaxation. Moments like those, however, do break up what can be a numbing monotony — not that Arbez doesn’t drown out dissent with all his noise. You’ll be able to tell which on the floor are replicants, at least.

Lazer Crystal opens.

– Steve Forstneger