If Bobby Conn were as big as Oprah, the national association of mac-and-cheese producers would be lining up to fight him. His home release show is Friday, as are the first TopGolf “Let’s Play” party, ALO, and Haley Reinhart’s post-”Idol” blitz.

On Macaroni, Bobby Conn’s Fire Records debut, he builds on his cannonade from 2004’s The Homeland with a broadside on American culture. The title track uses the cheesy comfort food as a metaphor for deep-rooted complacency, and he later laughs that love of war is our real reason for overseas military excursions — gas-guzzlers are just a happy byproduct. Despite his alien-of-the-art-world mystique, Conn’s music has always suggested a T. Rex disciple who just happens to make sense. (Marc Bolan often did not.) Macaroni is no different, a futuro metal-funk-electro hybrid that pulls from equal parts Zappa, Prince, Parliament, and 808. (Friday@Empty Bottle with Cave and Starring.)

If you snowmobile on an opposite pole from Conn, you might find yourself at TopGolf this weekend, for the musical launch of this summer’s “Let’s Play!” campaign that ends August 31st. “Patiopalooza” Fridays start with Covergurl, who’ll be teed up by a full raft of food, drinks, and putting greens where you might find yourself more relaxed than usual. (Friday@TopGolf in Wood Dale.)

Despite a name that’s an acronym for Animal Liberation Orchestra, ALO’s strong affiliation with environmental activist Jack Johnson seems more to be with Johnson’s taste for beach music. Sounds Like This (Brushfire) really belongs in Chicago in the half of the year when it isn’t so pleasant outside, filled with genteel lapping beats, coastal warmth, and a nymphomaniac’s lust for good times in the past. (Friday@Martyrs’ with Chris Kasper and Infantree.)

This weekend also marks the homecoming of Wheeling’s Haley Reinhart, the “American Idol” finalist whose Interscope debut, Listen Up!, came out Tuesday. She’ll be signing autographs at her neighborhood WalMart and then performing a free concert at the Hard Rock Cafe downtown. (Saturday@Hard Rock Cafe.)

That schoolchildren aren’t mandated to learn cursive has the irrational class believing that the art of letter-writing will disappear with it. Keeping faint hopes alive, PS I Love You are in town, as are Shovels & Rope.

Much like Titus Andronicus a couple years ago, PS I Love You’s Death Dreams (Paper Bag) manages some blistering indie rock that nevertheless evokes summer. The difference is Paul Saulnier’s swooning vocals, which make Brian Ferry sound like Lemmy. Of course, that’s when you can hear him. The deafening whirr of Saulnier’s guitars and Benjamin Nelson’s multi-car pile-up of a drum technique returns from last year’s Meet Me At The Muster Station. With a performance this intense, the best you can hope for is some subtle changes in shading, and PS I Love You have refined themselves to accomodate just that. (Wednesday@Schubas with Army Girls and Cuff The Duke.)

If we can’t have a full round of sloppy-drunk Hayes Carll and Cary Ann Hearst duets like “Another Like You,” a complementary pairing of Hearst and Michael Trent will have to suffice. Calling themselves Shovels & Rope, the two give a spirited homage to the days of Loretta & Conway or Dolly & Porter while circling that country legacy with a jug of gasoline. O’ Be Joyful (Dualtone) is consistently harder than most country rock (think Pistol Annies meets The White Stripes), but the key to surviving the album’s gritty (not faux-authentic) slapback tone are changeups like “Lay Low” and closer “This Means War.” (Friday@Subterranean with The Kernal and Robert McShane.)

– Steve Forstneger

Gridlock downtown! Restrictions on commuter trains! Riot gear! (Thanks to considerate Loop employers, less traffic on Foster this morning.) Only Jennifer Herrema, ex-Royal Trux, would do a show this weekend! Ane Brun waits a day or two.

Notice I didn’t mention the Cubs/Sox series in the list of bedlam, as absolutely no one cares anymore. After squeezing all she could out of Royal Trux and RTX, you could imagine Herrema wouldn’t care more for guitar music, but the new album by her RTX reboot, Black Bananas, pretty consistently debunks that notion. Rad Times Xpress IV orgiastically extols its love for six-strings, in a surprisingly danceable melange of saxy Bowie, T. Rex glitter, Ernie Isley space funk, and — on “Earthquake” at least — James T. Kirk. The name Black Bananas is clearly a metaphor: what looks like spoiled fruit is actually treasured by pastrymakers for its intense flavor (and easily mashable texture). (Sunday@Lincoln Hall with Kurt Vile & The Violators and True Widow.)

Ane Brun’s missing an opportunity by playing here the day after the NATO convention ends, as the mantra-like repetition of her album’s title, It All Starts With One, on the same effort’s “The Light From One” would be a magically positive protest anthem. (It sure beats marching through Bridgeport chanting, “Fuck the police.”) Occasionally, Brun sounds too delicate to withstand the hot air that will be blowing from all sides this weekend, though the Norwegian has a backbone of dignity in her work that keeps it grounded as wispier elements threaten to take flight. (Tuesday@Lincoln Hall with Gemma Ray.)

– Steve Forstneger

As with any genre, many aren’t shy about their opinions of what country music should be. Admittedly, we’re glad it’s not all about heartache and crops drying up and tears in beer: Jason Boland & The Stragglers, however, like to keep things serious. Also in town: Rocky Votolato and Here We Go Magic.

But what makes Rancho Alto an unqualified success is its refusal to preach and that it doesn’t make concessions to recording methods that fabricate grit. In that sense, Jason Boland & The Stragglers are almost better than Drive-By Truckers in selling tales of scraping out a living, moral gray areas, and brutal luck. “Down Here In The Hole” depicts a suck-ass job where you never see the sun; a poisonous relationship becomes routine in “Obsessed”; and, in the harrowing “False Accuser’s Lament,” a poor farmer agrees to go along with the prosecution’s story only to see the gallows every night in his sleep. The Stragglers never over-dramatize Boland’s vignettes, hewing closely to traditional country templates and letting the direct words do the work. (Friday@Joe’s with Chris Knight.)

Rocky Votolato’s Television Of Saints (Undertow) grows into a family affair, though his unshakable romantic issues remain solely his. Presented in relatively unadorned singer/songwriter tones, Votolato’s problems get reflected back at him in the dreariest details of modern life: stoplights, dead leaves, brick houses along the highway, a perpetually powered TV, etc. The pain of divorce paralyzes “Start Over,” while in “Sunlight” he edges over the lines of mental collapse. In short, Votolato and Boland need to go bowling. (Thursday@Schubas with Kevin Long.)

No established artist says, “I’ve never heard of this producer or anything they’ve done, but I’ll hire them anyway.” It’s certain that Luke Temple liked something Nigel Godrich did (probably for Radiohead) before approaching him to helm Here We Go Magic’s A Different Ship (Secretly Canadian), the trick was to not give fans or critics incentive to believe that it was because he wanted to sound like one of Godrich’s clients. Mission failed on “Alone But Moving,” where Temple’s cracking falsetto recalls a certain you-know-who. What’s funny, however, is how nothing you’d credit to Godrich sounds identical to Radiohead. Here We Go Magic move somewhat antiseptically (or unassertively) through the album, preferring gauzy textures and insularity as if they couldn’t have gotten there on their own. (Thursday@Empty Bottle with Dolphins.)

– Steve Forstneger

Anime had its Big O; well-traveled singer/songwriters look to Alejandro Escovedo and Damien Jurado. That, and more tenuously tangential links in our roundup for the 16th, also including Hope For Agoldensummer, The Royalty, and We Are Serenades.

How strange is it that Alejandro Escovedo was once in a side-project rock band called Buick MacKane and has now thrice worked with producer Tony Visconti? As things stand, Big Station (Fantasy) sounds no more like T. Rex than anything else in the 61-year-old’s catalog. But Escovedo and Visconti have come up with what amounts to a “hit” album for the San Antonian, in so far as it sounds like a compilation of all his best work. Perhaps that’s owed again to the collaboration of co-writer Chuck Prophet, who himself is on a roll as far as distilling Americana rock into something a little less wearying than your boilerplate No Depression stars. Opener “Man Of The World” might not quite be the Fleetwood Mac song, but its pumping swagger gives that version a run for its money. (Wednesday@Uptown’s Playlist Theater in LaSalle with Jesse Malin.)

One day, a rather stunning compilation will be made of Damien Jurado’s best, and in a perfect world it would place him alongside the likes of John Prine in the history books. Maraqopa (Secretly Canadian), however, will not be rocketing toward the top of the pops soon. A deep, yet somewhat quixotically mixed album, Jurado usually pushes the bulk of his imagination into his characters but really lets fly with the arrangements here. Opener “Nothing Is The News” opens with the muddled rumble of old guitar strings, but soon launches itself into Haight-Asbury psychedelic rock. “Life Away From The Garden” casts a creepy children’s choir, and the LSD returns for the reverbed lope of “This Time Next Year.” Though his fragile tenor reminds you whose album this is, it’s easy to forget what you began listening for, until words like “Don’t let go/I need you to hang around/I am so broke/and Foolishly in love” remind you that not all’s in the scenery. (Wednesday@Schubas with JBM.)

Harmonizing sisters aren’t trendy — they’re a gift. So yes, Claire and Page Campbell intertwine as effortlessly as the Watson Twins or Wilsons, but they don’t prefer a lung-emptying showcase or even something that would wake Azure Ray from a slumber. Instead, Hope For Agoldensummer use Life Inside The Body to make subtle and even aching gestures, many of which recall the vulnerable, half-wakefulness of Rebecca Gates. It can be somnambulant and deliberate, for sure, but it’s never typical. (Wednesday@Uncommon Ground Devon with Andru Bemis.)

It can be a wonderful thing to have a versatile pop band. While Victory Records has gone overboard with The Royalty by comparing them to everyone from Adele to Blondie to Sleigh Bells, the label’s clearly excited by its prospects. On Lovers, Nicole Boudreau stars in an almost Gwen Stefani-like way, one that flirts with debasing her bandmates’ contributions. But The Royalty are up to creating a multitude of pop scenarios for her, whether Spector-esque pop, ska-lite, or electro-pop delight. (Wednesday@Beat Kitchen with Nature Show, Placeholder, and Eiffel Tower.)

The jump from Shout Out Louds to We Are Serenades is deliberate if not literal. The delicate, Swedish power-poppers might actually only be half SOLs — frontman Adam Olenius — but their raison d’etre is fully encompassed by his band’s “Impossible” and its precious intent to never compromise happiness. What keeps Criminal Heaven from being an irrepressible ode to blind youth is its pacing, a cryptic concession to acquiescence that is obscured in the interest of keeping the good times going for as long as possible. (Wednesday@Empty Bottle with Northpilot and Dozens.)

– Steve Forstneger

You have a big weekend: after Maps & Atlases finish their hometown release party at Metro, wake up, brush teeth, and get in line to be first for The Right Now’s. Also: Sheffield’s Water For Ale, Father John Misty, Chicha Libre, and Royal Canoe.

A problem with the soul-revue revival is the aggressively retro stance of its participants. Not limited to dress, a huge portion of the songs seize on peak-period Stax and Muscle Shoals-type arrangements complete with analog pops and snaps. Chicago-based The Right Now share complicity in some of these tropes, but at least the new Gets Over You doesn’t doll itself up like Dick Clark will come knocking any moment. With a name like Stefanie Berecz, the band’s frontwoman does well to keep from donning blackface and mimicking any of the era’s iconic vocalists. Her pipes’ Midwestern modesty is a microcosm for a band trying to find their own way with the genre’s well-worn templates — case in point is “Call Girl,” which loses the tie, undoes two or three buttons, and heads out under the disco ball. To the alternate future! (Saturday@Lincoln Hall with Derobert & The Half Truths.)

If you’ve watched the craft beer section of your local Jewel or Dominick’s explode from Leinenkugel’s and Honey Brown to bombers of Hop Stoopid and Flossmoor Station, you’re no doubt impressed. You might also be wondering, if there’s this much specialty brew to go around, where are we getting all the water? And how much longer until the Southwest is completely tapped out (giving teetotalers a new look at the term “going dry”)? Sheffield’s — long one of the only places in Wrigleyville that served decent beer — announces the first S.W.A.P. (Sheffield’s Water From Ale Project) for this weekend, during which it’ll donate a dime from every draft poured off its 50 taps to organizations including Friends Of The Chicago River, and Council Of The Great Lake Governors, and Water.org, while working with brewers to match what it gives. Admission is free for an all-you-can-eat fish fry, a Two Brothers “Tap Takeover,” and bluegrass! (Saturday@Sheffield’s with Chico & James.)

In 2007, Barbes Records released Roots Of Chicha: Psychedelic Cumbias From Peru, a stunning compilation of South American songs from the ’60s that collided with psychedelic rock. The astonishing and ostensibly sad thing about it, is that the musicians didn’t seem to be playing this great music for anyone but themselves and the chances of hearing it again were limited to this release. Not necessarily so: Chicha Libre arrive this week, and this year’s Canibalismo (on the same label no less), recreates the style with a modern flair. In place of dirt-floor, barrio charm comes a cleaner representation that has its own benefits: particularly bringing out elements poorly recorded in the past. (Saturday@Old Town School Of Folk Music.)

The harmonies on Fear Fun pull the curtain back on the fact that J. Tillman daylights in Fleet Foxes, a connection that no doubt encouraged Sub Pop to give a big-label shot to the wandering, shamanistic singer/songwriter. Its hunch pays off on his debut as Father John Misty, which updates the Devendra Banhart hippie mystique to fashionably include the PacNW, L.A. hotels, and a hint of Sweetheart-era Byrds. (Saturday@Schubas with Har Mar Superstar.)

Winnipeg’s Royal Canoe put disproportionate weight on point of view for their Extended Play EP, and that doesn’t include the Vampire Weekend-ish run through the motions of “Caught In A Loop.” From one side, they’re cavalier boundary crossers, melding psychedelic rock, hip-hop, and world pop with abandon, and making summery anthems at each turn. Or, you could say its engaging unpredictability conspicuously opens a pleasant new path, and that “Loop” is more of a signifier of boundaries than a way to fill five minutes. (Sunday@Township with The Mommies.)

– Steve Forstneger

No one really addresses it, but one of the hallmarks of post-millennial hip-hop has been very punk rock: you don’t need a good voice to make an impact. Danny Brown epitomizes this and is in town this week, along with Ty Segall, Stryper, Maps & Atlases, and Plants And Animals

We’ve come a long way from Melle Mel and Kurtis Blow, but even beyond the interjections of Snoop Dogg and Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, the MC ideal has been someone who commands the mic, enunciates, and (most underrated) can spit in relative tune with the music. DMX challenged this in the extreme — as did Busta Rhymes, Ol’ Dirty Bastard, and even Ja Rule — but today it seems atonality or a harmonic indifference has become the way. Lil Wayne and Nicki Minaj operate independent of melodies and beats, while even Kanye West possess a nasally intonation and lack of authority that can make his voice crack when he attempts conviction. In that sense, Danny Brown’s long slog in the underground and prison system was just spent waiting for time to catch up to him. The material on last year’s XXX (Fool’s Gold) breakthrough didn’t just hinge on verses about winters using an oven as a heater or brutally graphic sexual exploits, but how his misfit pipes portrayed a split personality. He almost sounds like he’s battling himself on the final cut, “30″ (the album title refers to explicit content as well as Brown’s age), and creates a tension that transcends fads. (Wednesday@Riviera Theatre with Childish Gambino.)

Speaking of underrated, it’s great how we can talk about Ty Segall’s “old” material but chronologically only need to go back about two years. In a flurry of releases since he was unearthed in the same garage-rock revival that delivered Jay Reatard, Segall declines to stay in place very long. On last year’s Goodbye Bread (Drag City), he tried to divine if things really sounded better slow, and on a collaborative album this spring with opener White Fence he won’t let any structure take its coat off. Hair finds Segall and Tim Presley plotting, scheming . . . doing anything to disrupt whatever strolls they can lull you into. Still working from a customary palette of ’60s guitar bands, they kick out chairs, stick fingers in your back, and turn lights on just as you’ve fallen asleep. (Thursday@Lincoln Hall with White Fence and Strange Boys.)

Everyone knows that the great irony of the Stryper story is that they went platinum despite being assertively evangelical in an overwhelmingly debauched pop-metal world. Less spoken of, the band’s first real taste of success was in a place that couldn’t put less emphasis on religion if it tried: Japan. Take that further, when Stryper began to make their move in the U.S., some of their most vocal critics were highly visible members of the Religious Right. (Though, you could probably wager that sincere Satanists never rated Ozzy Osbourne highly, either.) As vendors of a particularly ridiculed musical style, Stryper may never get much credit for the barriers they demolished. Unfazed, they ended a 14-year hiatus in 2005 and dutifully went back to spreading the word. Of course, the landscape has changed so much that they didn’t take much flak for last year’s The Covering (Big3) — which includes their versions of songs originally recorded by Osbourne, Judas Priest, Kiss, and more — or the distressing artwork on their two post-reunion studio albums. But now that irony’s been brushed aside, there’s nothing left to do but play. (Thursday@Tailgaters in Bolingbrook.)

Whether people respond to it en masse is another thing, but it’s difficult not to have an opinion about Beware And Be Grateful (Barsuk). Maps & Atlases‘ sophomore full-length finds the local band quite a distance from their first EPs, where the proggy touches have morphed into something resembling mid-’80s Peter Gabriel. Part of that’s due to the husk of Dave Davison’s voice, but Beware takes a preponderence of trendy African rhythms and guitar lines and turns them into something American and summery with a production sheen that’s as integral to the album as the songwriting. (Friday@Metro with So Many Dynamos and Sister Crayon.)

The reversion to vinyl hasn’t necessarily coincided with a revived approach to making music specifically for 33s, though the idea defines Plants And Animals‘ The End Of That (Secret City). The first half plops down on the couch, and the Montreal-based band effectively churn out an indie-rock Americana, admitting to “Sittin’ in the sun/blowing smoke/and talking shit with no reasons.” But then the fifth track, “Crisis!,” flips a switch, the amplifiers register their unhappiness, and we get desperate cries like, “We’re running for our lives!” Two sides, one piece. Love it. (Friday@Schubas with Hundred Waters and American Wolf.)

– Steve Forstneger

Personally, we think the “turn of the century” was accomplished by Dale Earnhart back in ‘88, but not many others think of the phrase that way. Tim Eriksen, The Crickle, JD McPherson, and Joel Henderson all transport us to times passed this weekend.

In the case of Tim Eriksen, waaaaay back. A look at the New Englander’s new album title, Banjo, Fiddle And Voice, might suggest he’s some sort of bluegrass peddler, when in fact his influences go back to the Civil War. A master of old shape-note singing (a reason for which he was invited to contribute to the Cold Mountain soundtrack), Eriksen has become an invaluable link to bygone American folk traditions despite his relative youth. We’re still partial to his decade-old rendition of “The Cumberland And The Merrimac,” though Banjo, Fiddle And Voice is filled with never-quaint renditions of some famous tunes, including a version of “Tom Dooley” that makes The Kingston Trio sound like the patterned-shirt/pleated pants outfit they truly were. (Sunday@Uncommon Ground Wrigleyville.)

The assertion that Elvis Presley stole rock ‘n’ roll from black musicians always struck me as odd, because though it’s clear where he got the sound, Presley never sounded especially black. It’s a good think JD McPherson wasn’t around then, because he sounds exactly like Little Richard. Signs And Signifiers (Rounder) might find itself criticized for its contrivances to sound like it was recorded in the ’50s, but those quibbles fade once you start dancing. While his lack of innovation says the music isn’t terribly alive inside him, for a corpse it sure can move. (Friday@Lincoln Hall with Mar Caribe.)

In memory of prolific local musician “Crazy” Tim Rutkowski, Rabid Badger Records began surreptitiously dispersing free copies of Love, A Crazy Compilation – a set that collects Rutkowski’s career work including time with Wilco’s late Jay Bennett, his time in The Eisenhowers with Ike Reilly, in The Crickle with Erich McMann, and more. The compilation will be available this weekend, when The Crickle reunites for the first time in 20 years. (Saturday@Gallery Cabaret.)

Local ex-pat Joel Henderson comes home, and whoops! What’s that on the table? A new album. Locked Doors & Pretty Fences’s title’s two halves are a pair of mini albums on one disc, though thematically they share the same soulful, singer/songwriter principles. Echoes of The Band’s “The Weight” can be startling particularly this week, and it doesn’t help Henderson that the lyrics to his “Heartless Kisses” don’t transfer an equal amount of heft. But as a companion to the instruction manual-less world of divorced and single 40somethings, it works. Henderson’s been intimate enough with life’s stresses that he doesn’t need to relive them for the sake of gravitas. (Sunday@Space with Kim Richey.)

– Steve Forstneger

Fozzy Bear’s favorite band, the Waco Brothers, have produced their long-awaited collaboration with Paul Burch this week and, as luck would have it, have a party for it this weekend. Also hovering: Diana Ross and Electric Guest.

Admittedly, the fact that Great Chicago Fire (Bloodshot) does not surround a narrative for local history takes the Waco/Burch combo down a notch. The album’s much better for putting out fires, those that are temporarily subdued by 12 ounces of suds. Not sounding like they labored too much over any particular track, Fire sounds like a live album in search of an audience: ducking its head in and out of doors with rough melodies and enough chords to separate verse from chorus but not too many to keep it from moving quickly. “Monterey” gets borderized and immediately brings out everyone’s debts to country & western, though don’t go thinking “Flight To Spain” has anything to do with Daniel; “Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall” is exactly what you think, and how it should sound. (Thursday@FitzGerald’s.)

Diana Ross‘ second self-titled album (her 1970 solo debut was later renamed for “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”; this 1976 LP has just been reissued) may not have been the peak of her powers, but it was the last time she’d be so current and complete. Though she had firmly entrenched herself in the raging new waters of adult-contemporary (evidenced by the tacked-on single/theme to Berry Gordy’s Mahogany film, in which she starred), Diana Ross would open her doors to disco (“Love Hangover”), sported some burlesque-worthy pop (“Kiss Me Now”), an Ashford & Simpson track Carole King would be proud of (“You’re My Good Child”), and Jackson 5 funk (“One Love In My Lifetime”). (Friday@The Venue in Hammond, IN.)

When Danger Mouse works as a producer, you can hear his presence. Take the last two Black Keys albums, or Norah Jones’ new one: the benefitting artist is working with a whole new pallette. So the issue with DM giving a hand to Electric Guest’s debut, Mondo (Downtown), is parsing who’s responsible for what. “This Head I Hold” and “Waves” could have come from the sessions for either Gnarls Barkley album, though there’s no confusing Asa Taccone for Cee-Lo. In the grand scheme, it shouldn’t matter: this is a team working on these songs, and if they’re good they’re good. Half of them are. The nine-minute “Troubleman,” which sounds like the longest Josh Rouse track in the world, underscores a strummy blah that consumes the bad half, where no one put in enough work. (Friday@Schubas with Brother George.)

– Steve Forstneger

The cover portrait on Lambchop’s Mr. M (Merge) is not Vic Chesnutt (Chesnutt, for one, did not own such a hat), and he is not mentioned at anytime during the album. But the songwriter’s death is its centerpiece, and it captures with grace Chesnutt’s difficult but rewarding (for us, at least) existence.

Chesnutt and Lambchop principle Kurt Wagner became fast friends after Lambchop backed the former up on The Salesman And Bernadette (incidentally, the album that got Chesnutt dropped from Capitol), and his death is said to have hit Wagner hard. The resultant Mr. M becomes the most stately and sedate catalog entry since, O.K., their last outing Ohio (OH). But the only other person making mature, widescreen chamber pop this affecting is Robert Hawley, and Lambchop get extra points for not using Roy Orbison as a base. (Tuesday@Lincoln Hall with Darin Gray.)

– Steve Forstneger

Once you’re through sullying the holiness of Record Store Day by celebrating its more consumerist aspects, Brendan Kelly, Modeselektor, Ed Sheeran, Serge Devant, and Anya Marina will throw their arms around you and try to get you in the door.

Old punks don’t die: they go acoustic. It certainly seems to be the trend in Chicago, as we’ve witnessed Dan Andriano, Josh Caterer, Jon Langford (to a degree), and Chris McCaughan pull up chairs. So is it McCaughan’s Broadways/Lawrence Arms accomplice Brendan Kelly’s turn? Pass. On I’d Rather Die Than Live Forever (Red Scare), Kelly’s just as raspy and pissy as usual — the songs merely have more of a barroom-rock swagger. He advises, “Bitch, quit’cher fuckin’ crying” on opener “Suffer The Children, Come Unto Me,” and the menacing “A Man With The Passion Of Tennessee Williams” bears sonic resemblance to The Replacements’ version of Kiss’ “Black Diamond” minus the metal riff. All 90 seconds of “American Vagina” take a swipe at Green Day, while “Covered In Flies” could be an ode to Andriano’s work in Alkaline Trio — work Kelly clearly thinks Andriano should man up and get back to. (Saturday@Beat Kitchen with The Sidekicks and This Is This.)

Radiohead fans who jumped on Modeselektor’s 2007 collaboration with Thom Yorke (“The White Flash”) and then last year’s double reprisal should know this: the Berliner duo don’t always sound like they’re just to the left of Kid A. It shows you just how crucial that casting can be when hiring a vocalist, because earlier on Monkeytown you could mistake them for The Digital Underground or MF Doom: such is the effect of Busdriver and Anti-Pop Consortium’s verses. They handle ambient techno (“Blue Clouds,” “War Cry”) as well as spliced up dancefloor grinds (“Grillwalker”), and congratulations on finding more in dubstep (“Berlin,” “Humanized”) than an excuse to compose a drop. (Saturday@Metro with Egyptrixx and Abstract Science.)

Toward the end of his Elektra debut, Ed Sheeran taunts, “You need me, I don’t need you.” In reality, if something terrible ever happened to Sheeran, the industry could easily manufacture another of him. On the first two cuts of June’s forthcoming +, his own assembly line produces such notebook wordplay like “under the upperhand” in “The A Team,” and “on the right side of the wrong bed” in “Drunk,” and it’s not long before he resorts to claptrap like “You will never know just how beautiful you are to me” and “This is the start of something beautiful” so he can get a little pantyrub. His angle is that of a John Mayer who drinks too much, a role he assumes as convincingly as Freddie Prinze Jr. playing a bookworm. A surprising, Twista-like rap on “U.N.I.” provides evidence that he’s slightly more than a cut-out, but the ease and willingness with which he shrinks back into type is depressing. (Saturday@Aragon with Snow Patrol.)

Electronic music — specifically big, anthemic European-style house and techno — loves it some videos with barely dressed women cavorting, bending, washing cars, eating cherries in ways that take more energy and tongue manuevering than the calories and vitamins that the tiny fruit offers. Russian-born/New York-bred DJ Serge Devant recently released a video for his “On Your Own,” and it stars genetically advantaged model Anna Vishnevskaya. Her role in the clip is to make the male protagonist feel like shit. Not by teasing him sexually, but ditching him the day he gets an eviction notice and his life starts going down the toilet. On the surface, Devant’s music doesn’t show much, but Rewind (Ultra) convinces once you get deeper. It also boasts an unusual feature for this genre: a cover, here of Finley Quaye and William Orbit’s “Dice.” (Saturday@Spy Bar.)

Given that she looks like a blond Shelley Duvall, it’s hard to believe that Anya Marina has trouble getting a crush to “Notice Me.” The opening of her sophomore outing, Felony Flats (Chop Shop/Atlantic), plays similarly and frustratingly coy with Veruca Salt-ish power-pop. Sensing she could do songs like “Body Knows Best” and “Notice Me” in her sleep, Marina gets out of bed for the wildly divergent “Believe Me I Believe,” where her associations and friendships with members of Spoon, Modest Mouse, and Telekinesis seem to make more sense. It’s a haunted track that bleeds into the equally disconcerting “Hot Button” and then the rest of the album. But why you would tempt fate with two throwaways like the openers is beyond reason. (Monday@Lincoln Hall with Eric Hutchinson.)

– Steve Forstneger

The singer/songwriter profession requires an arrogance that says you’re the best person to sing your songs. Society has followed suit, forging a divide among all fans where an artist’s worth often hinges on whether one writes their own material. Anais Mitchell, with a voice both twee and polarizing, clearly feels her attachment to Young Man In America’s tales of family woe (daddy issues pop up more than once) give her license to sing them. The whimsical arrangements do plenty to validate her choice, rising and swooning and theatrically tip-toeing, though one does wonder how a more traditionally powerful set of pipes would alter the material. (Friday@Space with Cuddle Magic.)

Once known as “Basher,” Nick Lowe has majorly mellowed. Labeled a late ‘70s punk rock/new wave pioneer (like early collaborator Elvis Costello), this moniker was a misnomer; Costello portrayed the “angry young man,” but Lowe, with his premature gray hair and hard-pounding pop sensibility (“Cruel To Be Kind,” “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love, And Understanding”), was mildly peeved at best. Since the mid-‘90s, Lowe has shifted from sharp-tongued “Nick The Knife” to languid lounge lizard. A new collection of calm, quiet covers (including Costello’s passionately pleading “Poisoned Rose”) and originals, The Old Magic (Yep Roc) continues this tranquil course. New songs “Stoplight Roses,” “Sensitive Man,” “I Read A Lot,” and others brim with Lowe’s trademark wry wit and irony, heartbreak, and sarcasm, while dangling on a light, jazz-like limb more reminiscent of the Nat King Cole Trio than Rockpile. The “Basher” of yore is missed, but this laid-back offering keeps his “Jesus of cool” persona intact. (Friday@Park West.)

– James Turano

International Pop Overthrow returns to Chicago on April 19th and will run through the 28th at Red Line Tap. Each night will showcase at least six power pop or indie rock bands, with additional daytime showcases on Saturday, April 21st, Sunday, April 22nd, and Saturday, April 28th. David Bash, who brings “International Pop Overthrow” to 16 cities, including Liverpool and London, has assembled another Chicago lineup of veterans and promising rookies.

Phil Angotti, who was part of last year’s sold-out Material re-Issue gig with Ted Ansani and Mike Zelenko, will be performing his own music as part of Ginger Records Night. The Webstirs, and five other acts will also be part of the showcase.

“Mike McLaughlin and Big Al of Ginger Records asked if they could do a ‘night’ with us,” Bash explained via e-mail. “As Ginger Records artists have played IPO – Chicago (as well as other IPO cities) for many years, it was a slam dunk for me!” 

Like Angotti and The Webstirs, Mimi Betinis, The Abbeys, 92 Degrees, The Valley Downs, and Van Go have logged several IPO appearances.

“I’m very thankful that so many fine artists play IPO – Chicago each year,” Bash said. “I like to think what most attracts them is that they know they’re going to be on bills with cool, like-minded bands, playing in front of crowds who really dig what they do, and that I’ll treat them like family.”

Over the past few years, bands like Aaron Fox & The Reliables and Magatha Trysty have quickly established themselves as IPO standouts. Both groups, along with Wes Hollywood, Go Time, Red Plastic Buddha, and Trolley will be playing songs from new CDs this year. Some acts will be appearing for the first time, although Bash seemed reluctant to name which ones he finds the most promising.

“It’s like asking which of your children you love the best!” he joked. “Of those from Chicago, the IPO newcomers I’m most excited about are probably Jess Godwin, and Left Turn At Albuquerque.”

Bash also has high hopes for The Iveys from Texas, and New Inhabitants from Kansas. He prefers bands try out for IPO by introducing themselves via an e-mail sent to intlpop[at]earthlink.net, letting him know at which website(s) he can hear their music. Or they can use Sonicbids, a web-based organization that enables bands to apply directly to festivals.

This year all of IPO – Chicago will be held at Red Line Tap, leaving The Abbey Pub out of the mix for the first time. Bash explained the change came about naturally.

“For the past couple of years we’ve done shows at Red Line Tap, which have all gone well,” he said. “Brettly Kawaguchi has been absolutely great in helping promote the shows. In 2011, we did shows exclusively at The Abbey and Red Line Tap, but when longtime Abbey talent buyer Sean Duffy informed me that he was leaving, I took the opportunity to ask Brettly if we could do the whole festival at Red Line Tap.”

Holding IPO at one venue is easier on Bash, who personally introduces every act. The hectic schedule can be challenging.

“With each passing year the pace of the festival, along with the traveling, does tend to wear me out a bit more,” Bash said. “But at 53, despite having a bad back from lifting gear and suitcases, I still look forward to doing this every time!”

– Terrence Flamm

In an interview, presidential hopeful Mitt Romney tells President Obama to “start packing.” Romney, after all, has been on the road since last fall, and wants Mr. Obama to be prepared for a grueling tour. Also on the road this week? For All I Am, Trust, Bear In Heaven with Doldrums, and Tanlines.

I don’t know how they do it in Buffalo Grove, but For All I Am have jumped the gun. While Rhino reissues Pantera’s Vulgar Display Of Power next month, FAIA’s debut EP for Equal Vision sinks its nails into the vaunted Texan band’s followup, 1994’s Far Beyond Driven. Of course, it’s difficult to pin Lone Wolf’s influences to any single band, as tracks like “Injustice” tie themselves more closely to garden-variety metalcore. Co-vocalists Aria Yavarinejad and Chase Wagster deliver a constantly multiplying array of screams, barks, tenors, and screeches, often approximating System Of A Down set to puree. The Pantera reference frequently shows in dissonant, downtuned chords and Aaron Martinez’s dexterous drumming. Though this is just a sampler of a young band, they try too hard on “Eyedentical,” a kitchen-sink metalcore track that even features a quick dubstep drop and a shoehorned guitar arpeggio. Their heroes, at their best, kept things disarmingly simple. (Tuesday@Penny Road Pub in South Barrington Hills with Texas In July.)

Ten years ago, few would have believed that indie-rock fans would be so fond of dancing, so now’s as good a time as any to see if the mainstream will revisist goth pop as well. Trust, duo Robert Alfons and Maya Postepki, use TRST (Arts & Crafts) to play up the genre’s more accessible beats and dour melodies, while also retaining the edge that suggests you might not yet be ready to see what’s behind portcullis number three. Before it can slip down the retro garbage shoot, “Gloryhole” successfully incorporates elements of Moombahton atop thick waves of synth-bass and ghostly accents while “Heaven” sports a pornographic thrust and glimmering Euro-club lines. TRST’s vocal melodies, however, sound suppressed not in a theatrical way, but almost to hide them. (Tuesday@Empty Bottle with Valis and Dear Recipient.)

You know when you’re at a dinner party, and conversation keeps running artificially while everyone’s clearly looking at their watches but doesn’t want to be the one who breaks things up? And then your host finally caters to good sense with, “Well, we have an early day tomorrow,” and you clumsily utter “I was just about to say that” or “Yeah, us too”? It might happen to you while navigating Bear In Heaven’s Dead Oceans debut, I Love You, It’s Cool. The album’s first five tracks are as clattering and claustrophobic as the interior of a washer/dryer, with a speaker-rattling, buzzsaw bassline that’s as jarring as it is overused. Then, in the spacious “Cool Light,” the band tease “Too late/now I’m gone.” But that’s what I was going to . . . Bear In Heaven aren’t really gone, and hit a soft patch in “World Of Freakout” and “Warm Water.” Better late than never.

Equally chaotic, but more coherent, opener Doldrums‘ auteur Eric Asher can’t decide on a constant for the Empire Sound EP, and is all the better for it. Opener “I’m Homesick Sittin’ Up Here In My Satellite” rams Atlas Sound into a high-school football game, which gets interrupted by a murder and a violin virtuoso. From there’s the bhangra-influenced sample frenzy of “Parrot Talk” and sledding on the remote ice planet of “Endless Winter.” Asher’s gift for melody hasn’t fully developed, but a voice that echoes Perry Farrell is enough to go on for now. (Wednesday&Thursday@Schubas with Blouse.)

The inexperience of young bands grows in prominence as more of them headline mid-size clubs on their first- or second-ever tours. Some attempt to self-manage after having self-produced their own music; others misguidedly invent un-Googleable bandnames that supposedly create marketing mystique, mindless of the fact that Google will always catch up. Still more will drop a catchy single with little or no other quality music in the kitty, and inadvertently accelerate the one-hit-wonder parade to 4G speeds. Tanlines dropped their own catchy nugget, “Real Life,” almost two years ago and then did the smart thing: waiting ’til the rest of their work caught up. When their True Panther debut, Mixed Emotions, finally arrived this spring, it showed a slight lack of confidence by including the old single, but immediately the decision helps contextualize the track with synthy, Afro-pop-inflected dance music that doesn’t rely on either of those dressings. Presently, Tanlines’ recordings are stuck in the ’80s revival — in the future, however, it doesn’t appear that their songwriting will be. (Thursday@Empty Bottle with Rewards and The Field Auxiliary.)

– Steve Forstneger

The forecast calls for precipitation this weekend, and also for a bunch of dudes to come to town. We spotlight Howlin’ Rain (natch), Good Old War, Bassnectar, and Fun.

Howlin’ Rain, the revisionist rock band fronted by Ethan Miller (ex-Comets On Fire), are back with a third album — one that took the group nearly four years to make. With Columbia prexy Rick Rubin in the producer’s chair, I would have thought the group was heading in a more minimalist direction, but, they have in fact, done the opposite.

The result is The Russian Wilds (American),  a rock ‘n’ roll cornucopia of songs that, quite frankly, are all over the place. Not that this is such a bad thing; the classic rock bands of the ’70s that Howlin’ Rain emulate (Zeppelin, Rush, Styx, Creedence) made wildly diverse records, too. You don’t hear that so much anymore, so this record stands out because of it.

“Self Made Man” opens and is a throwback to the Zep/Rush rockers of the mid-’70s. It borrows heavily from Neil Young’s “Down By The River,” but works nonetheless. Miller’s vocals remind me on more than one occasion of early Sammy Hagar, but in the same breath, he performs a gentle read on other songs, so, it is hard to pigeonhole him. “Phantom In The Valley” (which clocks in at almost 8 minutes) plays out as a midtempo rock ballad, and then quickly moves into a  Latin-salsa horn-laden anthem.  Another highlight is the LP’s sole cover: a spacy remake of the James Gang’s “Collage.” Lots of spirit on this disc, but Howlin’ Rain would have a stronger LP had they been reined in a little more. (Saturday@Ace Bar with Buffalo Killers and Broncho.)

– Bruce Pilato

Despite shooter video games, one of our Afghanistan/Iraq incursions’ legacies has been the awful truth of post-traumatic stress disorder. I’m sure Good Old War would hate to have any paragraph about their music open like that, though it seems the old-timey jocularity of their name was chosen with purpose. It’s also an allegory for voluntary relationship mindgames, the kind that get retold with occasionally wounded bereavement on Come Back As Rain (Sargent). Despite the heartache, the folk pop moves like a lithe cousin to The Avett Brothers, but still not agile enough to dodge the storm. (Saturday@Lincoln Hall with The Belle Brigade and Family Of The Year.)

Bassnectar’s Vava Voom plays like the tale of two bands, while fans of his mixtapes form a third. The official full-length combines relentless jams like the Lupe Fiasco-featuring title track, and scattered throughout are random bits of genius he had to release before a copycat competitor pounced. His Amorphous Music Mixtape Vol.7, however, does him no justice. An excuse to throw in some wobble or a bass drop never passes him, and despite the mix’s disposable intent, it slowly pushes you to the anti-brostep side of the line. Did we really need to drag Blur’s “Song 2″ into this? (Saturday&Sunday@Congress Theater with Vibesquad.)

With the fortune of a blockbuster single naturally comes a backlash, people who presume everything you represent can be condensed to the four-or-so minutes of Fun’s “We Are Young.” Those who do take the Some Nights (Fueled By Ramen) challenge on iTunes samples will get through the first two cuts shouting, “They’re ripping off Queen!” Those fewer who stick around will come to the conclusion that Freddie Mercury would give his left nut to still be alive and have a crack at something like this. Though the electronic and hip-hop tones are more stylistic than intuitive or functional, Fun embrace kitchen-sink spirit and catch themselves going over the top by not going too far over. Each listen is rewarded with something new, even if everything on hand isn’t completely rewarding. But to those who claim the music business now is just full of people who make singles, please allow me to retort. (Saturday@Vic Theatre with Miniature Tigers.)

– Steve Forstneger

Do we put extra stock in a month that has both an April Fool’s Day and a Friday the 13th? Is Halloween a better companion to the fated date? Who cares? Ceremony, Trampled By Turtles, In Solitude, and The Lumineers walk under ladders this Friday.

I always cringe when artists kick albums off with audio of sirens or emergency rooms, etc., because theoretically you want to demonstrate that the damage would result after the performance (unless you’re depicting a riot to get in your show, in which case proceed). Ceremony jump the gun a little bit on Zoo (Matador), mimicking an ambulance’s wail after its third track, but point taken. Arising from a particularly brutal punk scene outside San Francisco, the band have filed down some edges for their major-indie debut, but that doesn’t mean they’ve diposed of muscle and menace entirely. “Hysteria” kicks off with a Japandroids-ish whirr, while pockets of the album saunter with a leather-jacket swagger that recalls Murder City Devils. (Friday@Subterranean with Raw Nerve, The Ropes, and Divine Right.)

There are those who ruthlessly hold bluegrass to its essential elements, and others, like David Grisman, who are aware of those boundaries but stomp on its chest in the spirit of giving Bill Monroe’s creation some CPR. Trampled By Turtles try to have it both ways, populating Stars And Satellites (Banjodad) with cloudy folk-pop that has tastefully imported elements, and then traditional, lightning-paced hardcore bluegrass. The pacing can give you seasickness — slow cut, fast cut, slow cut, fast cut — and when they break the rules, the aim seems to be accessibility instead of artistic hurdles. But it’s better to know what you’re doing, than not. (Friday@Metro with These United States.)

It’s O.K. to parade your influences, as long as you do something with them, right? In Solitude have taken a big ol’ Magic Erase scrubber to King Diamond’s shrieking on The World. The Flesh. The Devil (Metal Blade). Wait, you ask, doesn’t that just mean they sound like the first Mercyful Fate albums? Welllll . . . like co-Swedes Ghost, In Solitude play up melodic elements so the galloping NWOBHM rhythms don’t feel quite so repetitive. With instrumental chops to spare, they prove their mettle with the final 22 minutes, “Dance Of The Adversary” and “On Burning Paths,” which feels like one song with several breath-saving interludes. (Friday@Bottom Lounge with Behemoth and The Devil’s Blood.)

A youthful enthusiasm for old sounds: that defines The Lumineers. Though it seems like the Colorado-based act might just be hopping on the Fleet Foxes/Mumford bandwagon, the truth is the media just looks for bands like this once the public latches onto something similar. What do you get on the group’s self-titled Dualtone debut? Warm, anthemic folk pop that’s about everything and nothing at once. Though their origins stem from a family member’s death, lead single “Ho Hey” seems to be about telling a friend about the girl who got away between doing shots at a sports bar. They insert themselves lyrically into decades past, which gets hammy and interferes with the overarching sincerity, but that’s why they slow it down on “Slow It Down”: so you can see that they (and the people who love them) aren’t kidding. (Friday@Space with Kopecky Family Band.)

– Steve Forstneger

While the initial appeal of “Jersey Boys” may be a soundtrack-ripe golden oldies like “Sherry,” “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” “Walk Like A Man,” “Oh What A Night,” and “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You,” there’s actually plenty of surprises beyond just a standard Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons jukebox musical. The Tony- and Grammy-winning show is also notable (and notorious) for boasting the behind-the-scenes escapades of Valli, Bob Gaudio, Tommy DeVito, and Nick Massi, who collectively sold 175 million albums before hitting 30.

As the fellas springboard from singing under the streetlamps of New Jersey to the big time, the ensuring fame and fortune causes plenty of problems. The one time inseparable friends eventually go their own ways, marred by some members’ creative differences, excessive partying, jail time, and even a harrowing run-in with the mafia. (Who knew the seemingly squeaky clean cats were capable of such?)

The drama continues to escalate in unexpected ways during Valli’s solo career, and without giving too much away, his road toward a comeback is tainted by a devastating loss. Considering over a million Chicagoans and 13 million worldwide theatergoers already took in the show since its 2006 debut, that cat may already be out of the bag, but even for those who know the ending, there’s still plenty of harmony-heavy hits to bank on. (Now-Sunday, June 3@ Bank of America Theatre)

– Andy Argyrakis

Public schools have been on spring break so driving on the northwest side has been a dream. No surprise this weekend’s shows feature First Aid Kit, Willis Earl Beal, Bahamas, Nero, White Rabbits, 200 Years, All-American Rejects, The Hobart Brothers, Paul Doffing, and, allegedly, Kevin Tihista. Plus, did anyone else feel ripped off that April Fool’s Day was a Sunday?

Part of the pushback in the “Is Taylor Swift really country?” borefest is a retaliatory swipe at the No Depression/alt-country world, which, as Chicagoans should well know, teems with cultural emigrants and tourists. What would they say about First Aid Kit? Swedish sisters Johanna and Klara Söderberg would seem to have an easier time passing themselves off as heirs to a Hollywood fortune than credible ciphers of the steaming mass of contradictions that is the American South. Any defense that they’re actually Americana gets shredded by some of the first words on the new The Lion’s Roar (Wichita), when the duo pledge to be a June or Emmylou to their beau’s Johnny or Gram. Luckily, the South is a hospitable place (no matter how often the Söderbergs curl up the word “goddamn” in their throats). The harmonies are appropriately intuitive, the overall tone mild if slightly assertive, and quite the companion for a pitcher of sweet tea. (Friday@Lincoln Hall with Peggy Sue.)

Of the risks in playing the savant card is immediately establishing a camp of listeners who treat your art like a curiosity or, worse, an exploitation. Willis Earl Beal hasn’t quite come level with the late Wesley Willis or Daniel Johnston, but by issuing Acousmatic Sorcery as a debut album XL Recordings seems entirely too willing to play along. A series of home recordings bound by little more than their impromptu demeanors, Sorcery offers far too little information to discern if Beal really has something to say — plenty of the lyrics feel like stream-of-consciousness, rhythmic placeholders — or if his trance-like incantations and raw howl will add up to something more. When it drifts into voyeurism it doesn’t feel good, and sounds worse. Posted live videos reveal a refined and muscular soul shouter, further catering to a caricature with loaded racial overtones. I hope he’s in control of this in more ways than one. (Saturday@House Of Blues with SBTRKT.)

Primarily a singer/songwriter affair, Bahamas‘ Barchords (Brushfire) gives the sense of a kid who’s only allowed an hour of TV each day — only in this case, it’s playing his guitars. Alfie Jurvanen shows touches of gospel, islandesque surf, and Red House painting, and each affecting cut harangues itself for a clearer picture of love, purpose, and worth. But they’re also invariably party to a threatening volume swell, cantankerous reverb, Leslie cabinet, or hyper-harmonized fill that suggests if Jurvanen doesn’t confine himself to a chair and a Eels-like croak, that he could duck-walk the fuck out of her at any moment. (Saturday@Schubas with Fort Frances.)

Nero probably could have found a more interactive name than the Roman emperor who ignored the city as it burned — for an electronic/DJ act, it seems doubly troublesome. On the conceptual Welcome Reality (Interscope/Cherrytree), the British set elude accusations of listlessness by genre hopping dubstep, drum and bass, and ambient techno as if they’re being chased by men with guns. The stray bullets kick up all manner of sounds, which are equally proggy and epic and occasionally rip the album from its focus. Nero’s bread-and-butter, however, has become dubstep, and they litter the landscape with and endless supply of drops that can be overwhelming and certainly do enough to shock Reality back into view. (Saturday@Congress with Dillon Francis and Lobounce.)

White Rabbits‘ Stephen Patterson didn’t take too kindly to my inference that his band took on certain elements of Spoon by working with Britt Daniel on their second album, 2009’s It’s Frightening. It turns out my concerns were unfounded. This spring’s Milk Famous only retains Patterson’s Daniel-esque falsetto; otherwise, where Spoon tend to go minimal, the Rabbits drape their third in effects and integrate innumerable escape routes. At first listen, it’s a fractured, muttering mess, that comes together through the Radiohead-inspired “Danny Come Inside” and silky “I Had It Coming.” (Sunday@Metro with Gull and The Hudson Branch.)

200 Years make their self-titled Drag City debut sound like it was recorded an hour ago. Magik Markers’ Elisa Ambrogio and Six Organs Of Admittance mainman Ben Chasny quite possibly recorded its 10 tracks in the living room of an empty house with hardwood floors, and Ambrogio’s cloudy vocals — “Waiting for a message/waiting for a sign” — hint that she feels responsible. The sparse arrangements occasionally have room for some of Chasny’s guitar tomfoolery, but otherwise they’ve left a lot of open spaces that could use some carpet and furniture. (Monday@The Burlington with Axis: Sova and Deep Sleep.)

Somewhere I got it in my head that The All-American Rejects — the name, maybe — were an emo-pop construct. The Oklahoma-born outfit, however, draw on sounds more closely associated with heartland alt-rock drizzled with high-calorie dressing. Kids In The Street (DGC/Interscope) sounds much more like Better Than Ezra and The Fray than Fall Out Boy, loaded with precious anthems that coo, “You’re a pretty little flower/I’m a busy little bee” and “You go fast/I go slow/It’s gonna be all right/’Cuz it’s you and me tonight.” Perhaps because their debut was recorded with a drum machine, AAR’s defining characteristic has become their manipulation of effects in lieu of having to cultivate personality, and that’s certainly true here. A power-drill solo breaks into powerballad “Heartbeat Slowing Down,” which comically recalls the wedding band in Old School; a discordant buzzing provides all the intensity “Out The Door” can muster; though it’s not until “Affection” that these tricks are woven into an equally interesting song, even if it spills into a self-indulgent pomp that would make Queen, Styx, or Meat Loaf blush. (Monday@Metro with A Rocket To The Moon.)

You have to be really careful to be coed sibling bandmates, lest someone misinterpret a love song. (Digression: if he had to do it again, would Jack White of The White Stripes infer that he and ex-wife Meg were brother and sister?) The Hobart Brothers with Lil’ Sis Hobart don’t really have to worry about getting caught stealing a glance, because they’re actually Freedy Johnston, Jon Dee Graham, and Susan Cowsill. At Least We Have Each Other (Freedom) goes light on innuendo but heavy on neo-Depression stomping. The sound is dirt-caked boots, stringy hair, and poor tippers, authentically authentic half-barrel roots rock for the 99 percent. (Monday@FitzGerald’s.)

An ideal world would have a lot more of Paul Doffing types: singer/songwriters who shut their mouths and just play instrumentals when they’ve nothing to add to the conversation. It doesn’t hurt Doffing that he’s a virtuoso acoustic guitarist, playing canyon-deep chords and fingerpicking tastefully and effortlessly. When he does exercise the pipes, his weary, Neil Young-meets-Damien Jurado tone evinces more gravity than any lyric sheet could ever muster. (Monday@Elbo Room with Shenendoah Davis.)

Finally, April also finds in its grace a rare Kevin Tihista appearance. Tihista was an integral part of local ’90s attraction Triplefastaction, and he spun off a solo project whose lush, hushed balladry evoked Elliott Smith and Pernice Brothers. His three studio albums for Parasol are still available and widely recommended. (Monday@Double Door with Goldenboy, Kerosene Stars, and Open Land.)

– Steve Forstneger

My neighbor’s testing a new lawn mower. Some friends’ mother was complaining that our property looks drab without new mulch. Our wife wants outside seating at the restaurant. It’s still March, dangit! Ben Kweller, Cheers Elephant, Beak, and Needtobreathe know; Joe Budden and Kasabian represent the summery future.

Because he came to prominence so young with Radish, some people have been waiting years for Ben Kweller to grow up. He seems to recognize as much when Go Fly A Kite (The Noise Co.) opens, dispensing advice from a life of “no regrets.” For the first half of the album, he channels the spirit of early Tom Petty, invoking brass or piano to add bluster to his guitar chords, before churning a barrel of thick, Southern rock on “Free.” But the next track, “Full Circle,” flips the album on its head, and despite his protestations of a 30-year-old life fully lived, Kweller’s rarely sounded so young. He’ll always be, to us. (Saturday@Lincoln Hall with Sleeper Agent and The Dig.)

Among my pet peeves isn’t that many older rock stopped listening to new music, but those who claim to have done so because “music’s not as good as it used to be.” Like Blitzen Trapper, Cheers Elephant flirt with tones of the Grateful Dead — not the endlessly circuitous jam band, but the one that occasionally wrote a radio gem. Like Wind Blows Fire cuts like “Falling Out” feature harmonized, Eagles-style guitar solos to complement breezy, Eagles-style vocal harmonies. That they manage it competently, enthusiastically, and without heaping piles of irony should be embraced more than the pantomime of cover bands. (Friday@Elbo Room with Sons Of Great Dane, Dr. ED, Brian Wheat, and Adam A Nelson.)

Even before they kick off their boots for the backporch jam of “Slumber,” The Reckoning (Atlantic) tips its hat to Needtobreathe’s country influences. The Charleston, South Carolina-based rock band throws the door open with “Oohs And Aahs,” which makes a strong case for mixing Muse and Fall Out Boy yet the sincerity in Bear Rinehart’s vocal feels more downhome than, well, emo. Beneath their guitar-based artifice, “White Fences” and “Drive All Night” push the sentiment further with a more obvious, Southeastern underpinning; later we find “there’s a place only love can go”; and by the time we “Learn To Love,” you won’t be just whistling Dixie: you’ll be breathing it. (Saturday@Riviera with Ben Rector.)

Supergroups are de rigeur in our incestuous, local circles, and Beak are no exception. Consisting of former Timeout Drawer members Chris Eichenseer and Jason Goldberg as well as Engine Studios co-founder Andy Bosnak and frontman Jon Slusher (who’s also sat in Timeout), the quartet had no trouble deciding where to record their debut. Though Beak demur when being categorized as metal, it’s difficult to fathom lumping Eyrie (Someoddpilot, April 3rd) anywhere else. True, elements of post rock, hardcore, and prog intermingle (and hello Micromoog bass!), but the opening minute of “Angry Mother Of Bones” pushes a pretty fierce interpretation of black metal. (Saturday@Ultra Lounge with Witchbanger, Arbogast, and Internal Empires.)

Everyone has a rapper whose success mystifies them (T.I., Young Jeezy), to go with another whose relative obscurity doesn’t add up. In Joe Budden’s case, he’s partly to blame. A top-notch battle MC, Budden’s attempts at full-length albums have uniformly been flops. Maybe he gets too excited, tries to please too many people, too many cooks in the kitchen: whatever. His skill and passion are undeniable. The nearly eight-minute breakup cut, “All Of Me,” from his Mood Muzik 3 mixtape, ought to be the envy of every spitter in the game. Relationship raps by and large suck, devolving into trollish sexism or cretinous bedroom appeals. But here, Budden pulls his hair out trying to reconcile his faults with what went wrong: alternately ashamed, pissed, stunned. The way he sneers, “I ain’t ig-nint!” while intentionally stressing the mispronunciation — grrr. Powerful. He also dropped the only killer verse on Eminem and Royce Da 5′9’s Bad Meets Evil EP from last year, just more fodder for those of us who aren’t willing to give up on him yet. (Sunday@Metro with Crooked I, Joell Ortiz, and Royce Da 5′9.)

After years of assuming an Oasis-type attitude while mining Madchester’s pass, suddenly Kasabian appeal to the Village Green-loving side of Damon Albarn. The opening three sides on Velociraptor! (Columbia) are filled with wistful nostalgia that — mixed with their signature electronic textures — evoke Gorillaz. Things get positively Beatlesesque before the title track lands them back in familiar, headspinning territory, but the momentary lapse in spazzing reveals that despite making all the noise they possibly could have during the past decade, Kasabian have been listening, as well. (Monday@Vic Theatre with (no kidding, a band called) Hacienda. (Yes, Madchester-loving Kasabian have hired an opener called Hacienda.))

– Steve Forstneger

What kind of person names their kid “Shooter”? What in-bred, gun-loving . . . Waylon Jennings, you say? Oh. Well, then. Shooter Jennings is in town this week, as are Bowerbirds, Dry The River, Hunx, and Of Monsters And Men.

Shooter Jennings first thought he’d be different than Daddy and Mommy (Jessi Colter) — since a career outside music was apparently out of the question — by being a rock ‘n’ roll bad boy, and when he got tired of that he formed a metal band. But he’s come around to the bloodline’s bread-and-butter in recent years, and though he went to New York to record it, Family Man (EOne) represents his most true-country effort yet. True, Shooter has done trad stuff before, but even in his Outlaw days, Waylon’s honky-tonk heroes weren’t dyed-in-wool fundamentalists. Shooter still throws around some Skynyrd bluster on the new album, and cameos from lefty Tom Morello would surely throw right-handed Nashville for a loop. But that’s why it succeeds. (Friday@Joe’s with Cody Canada and Uncle Lucius.)

As far as second generations go, drop Dry The River and Of Monsters And Men in the same barrel. While you need to take great care before throwing the former in the camp of Arcade Fire acolytes, and the coed latter in league with Florence + The Machine, each displays a considerable potential to get undeniably huge without too much sonic invention. When RCA releases Shallow Bed next month, they’ll be banking on its similarity to not only 2010’s Grammy for Album Of The Year, but also the best-selling “guitar” artist of 2011: Mumford & Sons. (It’s opening track, with a chorus about animal pelts, attempts to corral Fleet Foxes apparently.) The existence of Monsters is much less (seemingly) insidious, if not just for the fact the Icelanders have been around since 2007 even though they’ve just released their debut. Universal Republic will re-release My Head Is An Animal next month, but the band have done much of the legwork on their own, hewing tightly to a dramatic, group-affirmative style (and, it could be said, humorless) that recalls Florence as well as Edward Sharpe. The cleanliness of the production is what’s so alarming — someone understands how far it can be taken. (Dry The River: Thursday@Lincoln Hall with Bowerbirds; Of Monsters And Men: Friday@Subterranean with Lay Low.)

While much has been made of Hunx & His Punx frontman Seth Bogart’s stage antics — kissing everyone in the front row, for example — not nearly the same attention has been paid to his relative restraint. Unlike the proclivity of Of Montreal’s Kevin Barnes or The Hidden Cameras to foist raw, man-on-man sexuality on their listeners, Hunx play Hairdresser Blues (Hardly Art) relatively straight, letting the barebones, barely rehearsed girl-group arrangements underscore Bogart’s awkwardness and uncertainty. Those sentiments aren’t intrinsically tied to his homosexuality, but his universal failings in relationships; that they sonically recall the limited capacities of Jonathan Richman or Calvin Johnson is maybe a happy accident. (Thursday@Double Door with Heavy Cream, The Artist Formally Known As Vince, and Absolutely Not.)

Weeks ago, who’d have thought that Bowerbirds would have been the normal band. Though the duo’s catalog has largely been dependent on the fact of their twosome (and however tangential their relationship to freak-folk and beardo folk rock), The Clearing (Dead Oceans) feels more like the work of one entity than the first two albums. Beth Tacular’s vocals and the group-love handclaps on “Stitch The Hem” have been injected just enough to remind us this isn’t a Phil Moore solo set, but the focus on focus has redeemed them unexpected rewards. (Thursday@Lincoln Hall with Dry The River.)

– Steve Forstneger

Bands still on tours that hit SXSW continue to scamper around the country, partly explaining the flood of shows that close out March. The Magnetic Fields, Rhyton, Of Montreal, and Janus rush in.

Some people consider Stephin Merritt a national treasure: the haunting monotone with a rapier’s wit. His Magnetic Fields have been beset by concepts through the years (69 Love Songs, I, Distortion) so it’s refreshing that Love At The Bottom Of The Sea (Merge) shows Merritt doing more than exhausting a singular idea. That it’s saturated in synth-pop also takes things back a decade or so, when he was juggling Mag Fields, The 6ths, and Future Bible Heroes all at once. (Monday&Tuesday@Vic Theatre with Bachelorette and Kelly Hogan, respectively.)

Rhyton needs the aid of an accent or hyphen, just so the uninitiated can correctly bellow Right On! The trio — consisting of D. Charles Speer and Psychic Ills members — spills out psychedelic guitar jams the way the ’60s intended them: boundlessly explorative. Their self-titled Thrill Jockey debut meanders as if you passed under a band’s rehearsal space on your walk to and from work, recognizing several loose themes but never catching them in the same place. Rhyton challenge themselves as much as their audience. Or vice-versa. (Tuesday@The Burington with Turn To Crime and Solar Fox.)

O, for the days when Of Montreal cutesily dubbed their non-album tracks “songles” in place of singles. Those days have long since passed. The only certainly Kevin Barnes‘ outfit now provides is that of distinguished unpredictability. Such a cliché hardly does the sonic damage he’s caused justice, but it’s really the only constant from the previous two albums. The new Paralytic Stalks (Polyvinyl) sounds less aggressively impetuous, but never backs down from letting you know who’s in charge. That Barnes hired studio musicians this time speaks not of inconsistency, but provides evidence that the shit you hear is exactly as he knows it in his fractured, fractured brain. (Wednesday @Metro with Loney Dear and Kishi Bashi.)

Taken individually, you can imagine that Nox Aeris‘ tracks sound exactly like Janus intended: claustrophobic, lurking, and anthemic. But taken as a whole, the local outfit’s second album reveals a frustrating lack of ideas. Vocal melodies are given pariah status, coloring lines are strictly adhered to, and the default setting is a half-time lurch. Even when a track like “Polarized” comes charging out of the gate, the band dutifully retreat into their downtempo addiction. Their debts to Tool and Chevelle were clear on Red Right Return: it’s time to justify existence. (Wednesday@Cubby Bear Wrigleyville with Kazy and Goodbye Good Sense.)

- Steve Forstneger

Is it wrong to consider Cursive to be Omaha’s version of Local H? Obviously the setups don’t match, but there’s more in common than what Lasers And Fast And Shit, 3 Inches Of Blood, The Wedding Present, Oberhofer, and Fanfarlo offer to them, though they’re also in town this week.

Both Tim Kasher and Scott Lucas have done concept albums. And solo albums. And side-projects. Both have remained edgy, and that edginess has followed a path from 20something restiveness to pushing-40 jadedness. Lucas prefers a drummer who has no regard for his kit, while Kasher likes one who’s always subconsciously thinking of “Sing, Sing, Sing.” Beyond that? They’re twins. What you’ll have to resolve: how does Cursive’s new I Am Gemini stack up to the forthcoming Hallelujah! I’m A Bum!? (Sunday@Lincoln Hall with Cymbals Eat Guitars and Conduits.) (Local H play the 30th at Chord On Blues in St. Charles.)

Though indisputably with an identity all his own, David Gedge’s The Wedding Present carry the distinct flavor of a pair of Chicago-based outfits on the recently released Valentina (Scopitones). Whether Rick Rizzo or Jon Langford, the veteran outfit rubs sonic elbows with Eleventh Dream Day and the Mekons — tried-n-true indie rock played by men old enough to know better, but with a grit younger bands take for granted. (Tuesday@Double Door with The Jet Age and Pinky Piglets.)

Lasers And Fast And Shit don’t appear to have had many doubts about what they wanted to do on the Second: Cat Fight EP. Five songs in 10 minutes — or is it seconds? — put them on a path paved by Naked Raygun but not unlike the melodic exploits of Popes-bred contemporaries Even Bigger. (Sunday@The Burlington with Child Bite.)

The line between homage and parody goes out the window on 3 Inches Of Blood’s Long Live Heavy Metal (Century). Co-captaining this spring’s Metal Alliance tour, the quintet will be championing a record that could very easily be confused for Judas Priest. “Leather Lord” follows the NWOBHM heavyweights all the way to 1990, challenging the speed riffage of “Painkiller” nearly into mimickry. (Monday@Mojoes with Devildriver, The Faceless, Job For A Cowboy, and Dying Fetus.)

The phrase “landfill indie” doesn’t denote garbage, but it’s not complimentary, either. Oberhofer and Fanfarlo each represent perfectly competent, psychedelic indie pop played with precision and a non-chalant musicality — yet each is entirely without personality and totally replaceable. The principle of substitution threatens them both, even though the former records for Glassnote (Phoenix) and the latter for Canvasback (Joy Formidable). You’re unlikely to hate either — if you could actually tell them apart, that is. That they play the same venue on abutting evenings is just too coincidental. (Tuesday (Oberhofer)@Lincoln Hall and Wednesday (Fanfarlo) at Lincoln Hall.)

– Steve Forstneger

While the industry goes off to play, IE take a well-earned respite from the hype machine to enjoy our inboxes’ inactivity. If it says “SXSW Party” in the subject, it goes immediately in the bin. The whirlwind gets reaped the Monday and Tuesday after. Delta Spirit with Waters, Chuck Prophet, Andre Williams, Paperplanes, and Jeff Loomis lead the initial assault.

A small irony can be found in our haughty responses to publicists in the weeks leading up to Austinparty: all those bands eventually make it through Chicago anyway, and we don’t have to put up with abbreviated sets and homeless wifi spots.

If one band can bring all the hype in its pockets, they’re Delta Spirit. Not a knock on their originality, but the San Diegans are purely a product of their times. This month’s shiny new record on Rounder ticks all the appropriate indie boxes, from Arcade Fire drama, to Les Savy Fav single-string guitar lines, to (in the case of “Idaho”) gang vocals and MBV-esque shoegaze. They hired Chris Coady to produce the effort, and his credentials — Yeah Yeah Yeahs, TV On The Radio, Smith Westerns, Beach House — boast Pitchfork-level standards, though in that world you can’t just skate down the middle of the road. Frontman Matthew Vasquez spends the tracks reconciling his peccadillos against the average strength of his band, giving them wings when he needs them to have them, but never lapsing into type. Openers Waters show substantially more teeth on Out In The Light (TBD), putting a modern glow on the stomping blooze rock of The White Stripes. Inexpicably, however, “Ones You Had Before” and a sprinkling of quiet interludes directly invoke quiet-time Arcade Fire, ruining what was a contagious, if tasteful party. (Friday@Metro.)

You might know Chuck Prophet as the guy headlining the tour for Miles Niesen, whom you’ve read about here. He’s not quite the flagbearing type, however. Recommending someone else fight the power while he fights a cold on Temple Beautiful (Yep Roc), his lyrics aren’t the only thing that make his music more Athens, Georgia than Athens, Greece. A slacker’s karma floats these dozen, Replacements-worthy asides that do a little more work than they’ll admit. (Friday@FitzGerald’s with Miles Nielsen.)

You can’t predict the weather, so you’ll have to forgive soul-roots vet Andre Williams if Hoods & Shades (Bloodshot) sounds disproportionately cranky. Opening with “Dirt” — humanity’s destination whether rich or poor, winners or losers — it’s tough to recognize the blaxploitation spirit of the cover art. Williams, who’s been playing around town with The Goldstars as his backing band (who play this release show) but collects an impressive cast of Don Was, Jim White, and Dennis Coffey among others, eventually finding some shuffling grooves on this mostly acoustic — and expletive-free — set. (Friday@Hideout with Jon Langford.)

Eyes begin to roll like slot machines while taking in Paperplanes‘ Rhinestone Republic; the often-imitated tones of Flying Burrito Brothers and early Wilco bounding off the helmet like so many bullets. But then, you realize there’s a sense of humor at play that doesn’t tie itself to parody or snark: it’s like Mercury Rev descended on these country-rock tunes and decided to have a little fun. (Saturday@Ace Bar with Counting 10.)

Jeff Loomis has always been a metal guitarist’s guitarist, though larger fame was once a potential reality. Denied a spot in one of Megadeth’s many incarnations because of his age, he went on to underground success with Sanctuary and, to great acclaim, Nevermore. For his latest outing, a solo tilt titled Plains Of Oblivion (Century), could have been ripped from the pages of Guitar For The Practicing Musician circa 1987, with a guest list including Chris Poland, Marty Friedman, and Tony MacAlpine; as you’d guess, it’s a riff orgy the likes of which has few peers these days. (Sunday@Bottom Lounge with Protest The Hero and Periphery.)

– Steve Forstneger

Nothing against Justin Bieber — may he enjoy a long, fruitful career until his imminent usurper comes along — but long before there was “Beebs” (and perhaps long after) there came B.B. King. And he keeps on coming. Van Hunt also plays this week.

Absent embarrassing retiring/unretiring announcements, battling diabetes, and almost single-handedly maintaining Memphis blues’ rep, B.B. King stylishly does what he always has. Obviously he’s older and sits during the majority of his sets, but those hurdles don’t keep his fingers and tenderized vocal chords at bay. The latest document of his unrelenting march, Live At The Royal Albert Hall 2011 (Shout Factory), gathers a familiar coterie of all-star progeny (Derek Trucks, Susan Tedeschi, Slash, Ron Wood, Mick Hucknall), and shows King playing the royal. He’s still a sharp storyteller as well, saying of Hucknall, “I never heard a white man sing like he sang.” (Thursday&Friday@House Of Blues.)

When Raphael Saadiq dropped the crackling Stone Rollin‘ last year, rock fans nearly shot milk out their noses at the sound of a neo-soul softie throwing back to the days when R&B and R’N'R weren’t so polarized. Van Hunt’s What Were You Hoping For?, which bowed later in 2011, brushed aside the pretenses of retroism and just threw down. Back for a victory lap, Hunt seized on the fiery attitude of Arthur Lee and zigzagged all over the color barrier, and cruised past the generic one-love tropes of Lenny Kravitz. What Were You Hoping For? is a living, breathing rock album that — temporarily at least — assuages the worries that the only way for a black man to make it in rock is with a specific, iconic homage. (Thursday@Lincoln Hall.)

– Steve Forstneger