friday15
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VALIENT THORR At this point the notion of a band cooking up fake names and an elaborate sci-fi backstory is not in itself noteworthy. So what do Valient Thorr–Warped Tour vets and ostensible Venusian survivors of a 1957 spaceship crash–bring to the table? Well, their alien Viking whackjob patter is pretty solid, really. (Lead singer Valient Himself in a Chartattack.com interview: “I think there’s a guy named Walt Disney….He made a time machine and the other Valient Thorr escaped but part of his spirit lives here. Not just earth things you could relate to like art and writing; beyond a ghost spirit.”) And while the grease metal on their recent Legend of the World (Volcom) is a bit generic on the surface, it’s surprisingly funky underneath. Gogol Bordello headlines; Dan Sartain opens. a 6:30 PM, Metro, 3730 N. Clark, 773-549-0203 or 312-559-1212, $18. A –Monica Kendrick
saturday16
in flames, lacuna coil Come Clarity (Ferret), the latest album by Swedish band IN FLAMES, set some older fans on edge–it’s stylistically all over the map, and not all of its stabs at various metal subgenres hit the mark. It might be that their brutal touring schedule (which recently included Ozzfest dates and a stint opening for Motorhead) created a milk-in-the-fridge effect, where their music picked up other flavors, suitable or not. But when Come Clarity works–that is, when they return to the melodic grind that made them cult heroes–few bands are better.
tuesday19
SOCALLED This Jewish DJ from Montreal discovered klezmer while crate digging; since then his sampling has become a key ingredient in the music of klez modernist David Krakauer. But Socalled’s own recordings retain a much stronger hip-hop focus; his tracks combine elaborate samples of Yiddish music and borscht belt comedy with live instrumentation (lots of New York klezmer stars turn up) and vocals from the likes of Killah Priest and C-Rayz Walz (who guests on the forthcoming Ghettoblaster). HipHopKhasene (Piranha, 2003), a collaboration with Oi Va Voi violinist Sophie Solomon, is a musical adaptation of a traditional Jewish wedding, and last year’s The Socalled Seder: A Hip-Hop Haggadah (JDub) sets the Passover ceremony to breakbeats. On paper it screams novelty, but Socalled’s musicality, structural rigor, and skillful production make it all work. He performs with headliners Golem as part of the traveling Hanukkah party called Jewltide. a 10 PM, Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western, 773-276-3600 or 866-468-3401, $15, $12 in advance. –Peter Margasak
