Friday

• U.S. Air Guitar Championships: Washington D.C. Regional Competition. 9:30 club. $15. All ages.
• Concrete Blues. Bangkok Blues. Call for price.
• Candy Dulfer. Birchmere. $39.50.
• Toadies, The Willowz, Backyard Tire Fire. Black Cat. $15. All ages.
• The Marquees (featuring former members of Marvin Gaye’s first band). Champions Billiards. Free.
• Future, Among Criminals. IOTA Club & Cafe. $10. +21.
• Britny Fox, Baby Jayne. Jaxx. $12.
• The Public Good (CD release), Club Scout, Impossible Hair. Rock and Roll Hotel. $14. All ages.
• Carl Filipiak and the Jimi Jazz Band, Tom Principato. The State Theatre. $15.
• The Courtesans (CD release), Secret Pop Band, Gist. Velvet Lounge. $8. +18.
• DJ Will Eastman. Cafe Saint Ex.

Read More “Weekend Music Round-Up” »

If this week’s Opeth and Enslaved bill at the 9:30 Club was an inspired pairing, the combination of Isis and Pelican tomorrow at the Black Cat is almost too obvious. Imagine post-rock played with heavy metal riffs and you’ve got the right idea for both these groups. Isis are touring in support of new release Wavering Radiant, which sees the band cutting back on the gorgeous distorted fuzz of earlier works like Panopticon in favor of a looser, more psychedelic vibe. Vocalist Aaron Turner (also the boss man of Hydra Head Records) has added a decent singing voice to his repertoire to augment his guttural screams, and uses it to good effect on the new material. Isis’ current output is somewhat less sweepingly epic than their earlier work, but it’s still very much widescreen in nature.

Openers Pelican might glibly be called the Explosions in the Sky of metal. Pelican’s music is entirely instrumental and immediately accessible: melodic and major-key, yet still heavy. On their own they might be a little lightweight, but paired with Isis, they should offer a nice counterpoint to the headliners’ more doom-laden heft.

Isis, Pelican and Tombs play at the Black Cat mainstage Saturday night, $15 at the door, 9pm.

Well, if you didn’t stay out until 3:30 a.m. last night like I did, maybe you’ll be up for this show—a weird bill, but one that should appeal to fans of off-center metal. Pelican are like the Explosions in the Sky of post-metal—instrumental, surprising amounts of major-key melodies, generally upbeat and pretty but still packing a bit of a punch when called for. Their recent recordings are relatively calm journeys that happen to employ heavy riffs, but I suspect they’ll be rather more aggressive in a live context.

Kayo Dot, pictured above playing at Rock & Roll Hotel earlier this year, are tougher to pigeonhole. At this point, it could hardly be said that they play “metal” in any form, even if that’s where their roots are; instead, primary composer Toby Driver’s works play out like contemporary Western classical compositions, full of unexpected twists and long sections that are nearly inaudibly quiet. It’s debatable how well this will work out in the Black Cat, at which I’ve often found crowds to be notoriously inattentive and loud when it comes to opening bads.