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HEAD AUTOMATICA Back when Daryl Palumbo had the edge and was fronting Glassjaw, he tried out a bit of everything: screamo, rapping, violent misogyny, straight-up thuggery. Now that he’s singing for Head Automatica he’s supposed to be all about skinny ties, mod haircuts, and Nick Lowe records. But even with all that Auto-Tune on his vocals he still just sounds like a pitiful mooing cow. Rock Kills Kid, Men Women & Children, and Young Love open. 7 PM, House of Blues, 329 N. Dearborn, 312-923-2000 or 312-559-1212, $16.50 in advance, $18 at the door. All ages. –Jessica Hopper
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THOMAS MAPFUMO On his new album, Rise Up (Real World), veteran Zimbabwean singer Thomas Mapfumo sounds calm–or at least calmer than on the vintage singles assembled for the recent collection Spirits to Bite Our Ears (DBK Works). The frenetic, damped guitar lines designed to imitate the mbira (the central instrument in Zimbabwe’s Shona culture) have been largely supplanted by actual mbiras, with bits of reggae, soul, and rock complementing the stuttering grooves. The omnipresent electric keyboards on Rise Up are a little stifling, and Mapfumo’s voice is a little less forceful in the upper register. But his singing’s still strong overall, and he’s still angry: he moved to Oregon in 2000 to escape Robert Mugabe’s abuses, and he uses the songs on the new album to speak out against oppression, ask why medicine isn’t reaching Africa, and indict the current regime in his homeland for squandering its wealth. See also Sunday. 10 PM, HotHouse, 31 E. Balbo, 312-362-9707, $18 in advance, $20 at the door. –Peter Margasak
On last year’s Out of a Center Which Is Neither Dead nor Alive (At a Loss), local space-metal band MINSK mingled the sacred and the profane as ecstatically and menacingly as many bands with longer careers and more buzz. Since finishing that record, producer Sanford Parker of Buried at Sea has joined the band, and those of us eagerly awaiting a follow-up got some good news in July: they’ve signed with Relapse, and a new album is due in early 2007. Band members spin between sets at Unearthly Trance’s show at the Note; see Monday. –Monica Kendrick
Unearthly Trance headlines, Facedowninshit plays second, and Fuck the Facts opens; members of Minsk (see Sunday) spin throughout. 9 PM, the Note, 1565 N. Milwaukee, 773-489-0011, $10.
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