Live Music

Just to get it out of the way, there are no actual lesbians in this Seattle quartet. There aren’t even any women. Lesbian are really four long-haired, defiantly male metal lovers, whose album Power Hör rampages through demon howls, dropped-D chords and tempo and time signature changes of dazzling complexity. Through the course of four songs that stretch more than an hour, the band gives the nod to nearly every subgenre of metal, rifling omnivorously through everything from dad’s old Sabbath records to last year’s Isis. Think of it as a dissertation on the metal oeuvre, one that’ll ring in your ears for days. (Jennifer Kelly)

Cheers Elephant sound more British than most young Philly bands. They set out for prime Kinks real estate, and nearly close the deal with their rambunctious shows. (They could grow up to become the Teeth.) But as smoothly as songs like “Here We Are” and “Wide Eyed” channel ’60s psych and folk, the band reveals spidery digressions and fat Primus-style basslines amid their noisy rave-ups live. The result is a heady swirl of influences that grapple with each other for attention while Cheers Elephant play happily along. These guys may not have their sound set in stone yet, but most everything they’re doing is pleasing to the ears. (Doug Wallen)

Taking their name from the Velvet Underground’s classic “The Black Angel’s Death Song” this Texas quintet updates that heady drone for the 21st century with nods to the billowing psych of Spacemen 3 and the proto-garage throb of the Stooges. To that stew they add their own arid, sultry warmth. The resulting narcotic throb is the Angels’ secret weapon because it envelops as it ripples outward, swallowing the listener in its buzzing bliss. The loose jams are grounded in window-rattling bottom end, offering a place for your shoes as the circling riffs carry you higher and higher. (Chris Parker)

The 11-piece Dutch ensemble returns to Philly for the first time in 14 years with a major twist: They’ll perform Breuker’s original score in real-time during a screening of the F.W. Murnau silent film Faust. It doesn’t get any darker than this 1926 German classic, and the surrealism fits Breuker’s aesthetic like a glove. The music unfolds as an extended chamber-jazz suite, with elements of swing, funk, baroque and circus fantasia. Leading the descent into hell and ruin on alto sax is Breuker himself, who founded the Kollektief in 1974 and remains one of Europe’s top mad jazz scientists. It’ll be an experience on all sensory fronts. (David R. Adler)

Breezy on the surface, but laced with ominous images and funereal Americana flourishes, Alex Brown Church’s Sea Wolf have been getting some traction lately among folk-tolerant indie rock fans. The California native’s new album Get to the River Before It Runs Too Low has a prevailing mood of mournful giddiness. It’s a ghostly, melancholic world he inhabits, and yet his songs kick up their heels to the reel of fiddle, guitar and cello. And maybe it’s to forestall the inevitable lupine-named band comparisons that Church calls his first single “You’re a Wolf.” (J.K.)

Nate wears ruby red lipstick while strumming his guitar; Japanese-American Doris plays her banjo for blindingly white audiences; and Ty, with enviably suave nonchalance, taps the djembe and boasts about having a way with the ladies. With snug three-part harmonies, outspoken political camaraderie and gender-bent love lyrics, Girlyman might just be the new millennium’s answer to Peter, Paul and Mary. The Brooklyn trio’s signed to Daemon Records, Indigo Girl Amy Ray’s pet project, and released three tender folk-pop albums—including this year’s Joyful Sign—that linger on your skin and consciousness for days. (Caralyn Green)