Philadelphia Weekly

Pattern Is Movement

From the first seconds of opener "Bird," it's a punchier Pattern Is Movement we hear on All Together, the Philly trio-turned-duo's first proper album for Colorado's adventurous Hometapes label. Pattern--singer/organist Andrew Thiboldeaux and drummer Chris Ward--are plenty adventurous themselves, graduating from the math-damaged dynamics of yesterday to a smoother, sparer model that adopts distinct tonal qualities with each song. Thiboldeaux tucks weird lyrics into dreamy vocal swoons, and Ward dismantles rock drumming piece by piece. After years of making the rounds, the band is finally getting noticed with All Together thanks to SXSW exposure, gushing blog posts and well-placed Radiohead and Bj�rk covers. (Doug Wallen)

Sword

The thing about Austin, Texas, retro-metal foursome the Sword is that they sound so much like High on Fire (except with Ozzy singing over the riffs from the first two Metallica albums instead of Lemmy) that when I'm standing there watching them play, they're good and all, and they make me want to bang my head and drink lots of beer and go buy a '69 Camaro with a super loud engine and lots of primer spots and drive it around the neighborhood real reckless and set off all the car alarms as I speed by, but I always kinda semi-wish I were watching High on Fire instead, because Lemmy rules and Ozzy drools. But that's just me. (Michael Alan Goldberg)

Griefs

Sixties garage-psych doesn't need a makeover. Enter Cincinnati trio the Griefs, who case the genre like Columbo's evil twin, lifting everything they can carry--the Byrds' folk jangle, the Seeds' ragged rumble, MC5's proto-punk provocation, and a shambling psych drone they could fence to Brian Jonestown. Heirlooms, to be sure, but their flinty taste sharpens the bite on tracks like "You Know It's So," whose steely chug recalls Mudhoney shaved of their fuzz. If they liked, the Griefs could certainly Get Hip! or make Little Steven grow. (Chris Parker)

Local H

Here's the answer to the question posed by the title of Local H's last studio album Whatever Happened to P.J. Soles?: The once-sizzling actress went from getting the "Aunt Jemima treatment" from Bill Murray in Stripes to bit parts in such recent shlock as Mirror, Mirror IV: Reflection. As for Local H--the bruising Chicago duo that did the guitar/drums thing long before the White Stripes, 'cept they ripped off Nirvana instead of the Gories--their power-chorded angst hardly conquers rock radio like it did in '96 (e.g., "Bound for the Floor"), but they're still a reliably pugnacious live act. Are Local H pissed off? Based on the title of their new Twelve Angry Months, I'd say so. (M.A.G.)

Trolleyvox

Batman's arch enemy Two-Face would've loved the Trolleyvox's last CD, a double with one disc (Your Secret Safe) loud and electric, the other (Luzerne) caressingly soft. The band's not-so-evil masterminds Andrew Chalfen and Beth Filla have retreated to their hideaway lately, cooking up their next plot for world musical dominance. The Caped Crusader and anyone else with a soft spot for exquisite power pop might get an advance tip on their next salvo at this low-key show at the North Star. Holy Stratocaster, Batman! If Philadelphia falls victim to the Trolleyvox, could Gotham be next? (Jennifer Kelly)

DeVotchKa

I was about to write, "In today's crowded field of colorful Balkan-inspired gypsy-folk outfits prioritizing accordions, bouzoukis and tubas over guitars and drums, DeVotchKa stands out ... " And then it occurred to me that even just a couple years ago if you'd told me a band that played gypsy-folk music with bouzoukis would actually need to stand out from the crowd, I would've looked at you like you were nuts. But these days Americans seem to fetishize Old Euro-sounding indie rock as much as they do bukkake and Perez Hilton. So how do DeVotchKa stand out? Throwing mariachi and Nino Rota-style vibes into the mix helps; so does the presence of a suave, crooning singer who's more like Morrissey than someone's crazy uncle fresh off the boat from Bucharest. (M.A.G.)

Dan Blacksberg Trio

Trio jazz is like a martial art--a game of flow and tension, inner balance and outward display. Saxophonists and pianists reign supreme in the idiom, although Dan Blacksberg, one of Philly's most promising twentysomethings, is forging his own path on the trombone. Trained at New England Conservatory, Blacksberg is now a first-call klezmer player and a key soloist in Bobby Zankel's big band. Free jazz is in his DNA, and when he teams with bassist Jon Barrios and drummer Mike Szekely, you can count on deep insight and seriousness--a framework, as Blacksberg puts it, in which "compositions act more like resting places or points of musical agreement." (David R. Adler)

Yo Majesty + Does It Offend You, Yeah?

Yo Majesty's website describes them as an "undisputed female trio." Undisputed is right. They have vaginas and there are three of them--no argument. And there's every chance you'll get to see all three vaginas as they rap like a six-titted 2 Live Crew, if--as a punishment for their crude and exploitative objectification of women--the Crew were reincarnated as a hardcore crunk combo that sounds nothing like a trio of Beth Ditto clones puking up the remains of a half-digested Peaches, but embodies that spirit utterly nonetheless. Does It Offend You, Yeah? have fewer vaginas than Yo Majesty, but compensate by being both dafter and punker than Daft Punk, only less French. (Steven Wells)