Electro-Dance | Weirdo Wednesday
G-Space, Laika Beats, Rave Charles, Bass Canviss, Cheddar Bob, Hippie Gilmore
Wed. Apr. 10
7 p.m.
$15
The Purple Buffalo
It’s been one year of Good People Entertainment making Wednesdays weird at the Purple Buffalo, and they’re saying ‘happy birthday’ with yet another electro-dance party. Drum and bass, dubstep, and all-things glitchy will take center stage as a rotating series of rave DJs take over for a dimly lit, strobe light throwdown. SoulShine Spirit will dispense their hand-crafted jewelry and Birds of a Feather will whip up barbecue and soul food throughout the night. Acid trip-friendly projections for the hard dance tunes will be provided by Black Hat Visuals. —Heath Ellison WEDNESDAY
Extreme Metal | Cradle of Filth
Weds. April 10
9 p.m.
$25-$27.50
Music Farm
Suffolk, England’s own Cradle of Filth has spent damn near 30 years as one of the loudest, heaviest, most menacing bands on Earth, taking the naked aggression of thrash metal and adding a theatrical, goth element to the mix. Still led by lead vocalist and head madman Dani Filth after 28 years, Cradle of Filth’s new album Cryptoriana: The Seductiveness of Decay finds them in excellent form, churning out the expected double-time riffs, merciless rhythms, and demonically howled vocals but also adding in a Satanic-sounding choir and lacing the proceedings with icy, foreboding synths. As overpowering as their music is in terms of aggression, the band’s songs are unfailingly melodic. Unlike many of the pure-darkness goth metal bands that have sprung up in their wake, Cradle of Filth knows how to construct a song so that the brutality is delivered with maximum craft to achieve maximum damage. It’ll never be pretty, but their extreme metal is always well-built. —Vincent Harris WEDNESDAY
Americana | Mike Martin & the Beautiful Mess, Ripley & the Ghost, Logan & the Kidders
Sat. April 13
9 p.m.
$5
The Royal American
With the rustic acoustic guitar-and-harmonica neo-goth Americana of Ripley & the Ghost, this weekend you’ll find some of the darkest folk you’re likely to hear, all mixed with a fantastic smart-ass streak (sample song title: “You Lose Your Shit When You’re in Love”). Next up is the idiosyncratic Logan & the Kidders, a band that takes straightahead blues-rock and mixes in a wailing fiddle and pure-country vocal harmonies. Closing out the evening will be City Paper Music Awards’ Country/Americana Band of the Year, Mike Martin & the Beautiful Mess, a ragged-but-right honky-tonk quintet featuring the gravel-voiced growl of Mr. Martin and some seriously gritty fiddle-and-banjo interplay. —Vincent Harris SATURDAY
Emotional Space Rock | Bright Light Social Hour
Sat. April 13
9 p.m.
$12/adv., $15/door
Pour House
On their new album, Jude, Vol. 1, the Austin quartet Bright Light Social Hour makes music so massive that you can practically dive into it, blending the balls-out epic sound of Muse with the space-rock eeriness of post-Syd-Barrett, pre-Dark Side of the Moon Pink Floyd. Every song shimmers like a mirage, teeming with guitars, synths, and icy vocal harmonies. Even without lyrics about feeling lost, confused, and devastated, the music would feel incredibly emotional, which is fitting since the album was made in the aftermath of the band’s former manager, Alex O’Brien, committing suicide after a struggle with bipolar depression. To deal with his death, the band, which includes Alex’s brother Jackie on bass and vocals, created a wealth of music, so much so in fact that they’ve divided Jude (Alex’s middle name) into two volumes. “It felt like we had two different chapters,” Jackie says. “As we were recording it, it became clear that some of the tunes were about us trying to wrap our heads around it and make sense of the chaos, and that was Volume One, and the other half was about finding understanding and gratitude and peace coming out of it all, so that was the second volume.” —Vincent Harris SATURDAY
Dreamlike Indie-Rock | Ila Minori
w/ The Big Lonesome
Sat. April 13
9 p.m.
$7
The Mill
Sometimes the simplest music can have the most devastating impact, and when Ila Minori plays her gnarly electric guitar over a primal, propulsive rhythm section and lets loose with her crystal-clear, almost childlike wail, no additional filler is needed. On her 2018 album Traveling with Ghosts, Minori comes on like some sort of unholy combination of Patty Griffin and PJ Harvey, pitting her brutal riffs and churning rhythms against a voice that somehow sounds both angelic and deeply wounded. Lyrically, the thrust of the songs is just as simple, and just as devastating, particularly on the acoustic track “Mend,” which features Minori wailing, “Is it ever going to mend? Is it ever going to mend at all?” in such a wounded wail that it seems like a genuine cry for help from a broken heart. And then the weird retro keyboard solo drops in out of nowhere, reinforcing the otherworldly, odd feel of this music. —Vincent Harris SATURDAY
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