Music Picks

Mommy, I wanna be Diamanda Galás for Halloween. (Photo by Austin Young)

Love rollercoaster: Rodrigo y Gabriela, Saturday

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• Micah P. Hinson
• John Payne
• Matt Pond PA
• Abby Travis
• Hip-Hop and Rap

THURSDAY, October 26

Matt Pond PA, Micah P. Hinson at Spaceland

The Brooklyn-based indie-pop ensemble Matt Pond PA is led by a former Philadelphian named Matt Pond, a guy whose talent for sweet-and-sour acoustic balladry far exceeds his ability to name bands with anything approaching a creative flourish. The group has had some success outside (what’s left of) the college-radio ghetto: Last year, its cover of Oasis’ “Champagne Supernova” made it onto one of The OC mixtapes, which these days probably delivers more exposure than airplay on commercial radio. But Pond’s music is exceedingly gentle stuff, better suited to a world of library boys than hollaback girls. Opener Micah P. Hinson, from Texas, plays pretty but depressive folk-blues laments for people who wish Bright Eyes would get a little trippy sometimes. (Mikael Wood)

FRIDAY, October 27KMFDM, Combichrist, Abby Travis at Henry Fonda Theatre

KMFDM may be the loudest damn band on the planet. When Sascha Konietzko cranks up his army of leather-tech baldies, hang on to your molecules, it’s gonna hurt. Vox dominatrix Lucia Cifarelli stands strong among the flashes and detonations, but if you actually want to audiblize her melodic sting, consult the several crushing albs she’s cut with the band since joining several years back — WWIII Tour 2003, for prime example. Despite KMFDM’s many enlistment alterations over 22 years and no new product, this Euro force maintains a timeless status reinforced by the recent redeployment of classic slabs. While Andy LaPlegua’s theatrical Combichrist provides appropriate heavy-thud support, welcome contrast splashes down via hometown queen and past KMFDM collaborator Abby Travis — absurdly wild visuals, a panorama of cabaret stylings and honest-t’-gawd singing, as excellently demonstrated on her current Glitter Mouth. (Greg Burk) 

Diamanda Galás at Royce Hall

The volcanic singer-pianist Diamanda Galás calls her new concert of “homicidal love songs” Guilty, Guilty, Guilty, so be on your guard, for she’ll not likely be holding back. Galás — great avenger for the dispossessed via works such as Plague Mass and Masque of the Red Death (for AIDS sufferers), Schrei 27 (for torture victims) and Defixiones (for the dead of the Armenian holocaust) — is the dark queen and king of extended vocal technique, possessor of multi-octave pipes awesome and frightening in their intensity and range; her voice and equally formidable piano chops are thrilling in their brazen invention and sneering disregard for restrictions of musical genre. Tonight’s program includes selections from her upcoming Chansons Noire set and previously recorded works, including Ralph Stanley’s “O Death,” which Galás says is a love song, too — for the Black-Hooded One . . . (John Payne)

Bob Schneider at the Roxy

Although Bob Schneider proved he’s no songwriting slouch on Lonelyland and I’m Good Now, only a few furious tunes like “C’mon Baby” channeled the unhinged intelligence of his live rock & roll show. The Californian rectifies the situation, capturing the antic first-take fury of a locked-in band that’s played hundreds of gigs over the past few years. Bob and the boys pull the funky cornbread hot out of the oven on the bitingly satirical “Everything I Have Means Nothing to Me Now,” get in a goofy “la-la-la” chorus amid the hot-rod thunder of “Superpowers,” and flatten their ears and go for broke on the manic “Boombox.” But “Flower Parts,” Bob’s plea to not “forget a soft touch and an open heart,” shows a tender side to the babe-magnet rocker that transcends worldly self-absorption. (Tom Cheyney)

SATURDAY, October 28

Stuart A. Staples at the Troubadour

As singer and co-songwriter for English ensemble Tindersticks, Stuart A. Staples has proffered over a decade’s worth of musty, nicotine-flecked swooners for velvet-lined, red-wined consumption. But his American solo debut, Leaving Songs (Beggars Banquet), is a true drifter’s album: less shimmering candle glow and more buzzing beer light. Perhaps inspired by Claire Denis’ recent globe-hopping masterpiece, L’Intrus, which he scored with a haunting refrain of some echo-warped whatsit, Staples goes wandering. After a lengthy, gin-smeared kiss-off to his “old” friends and hauling a light load — a crackling snare, dark bass strands, crisp acoustic chords and some organ purr — Staples traverses winding paths, long dusty roads and, eventually, the open sea. Tonight Staples sets off on an actual cross-country trek (his first-ever solo U.S. tour), bringing his inimitable voice, a slightly-sour concentrate aged in oak and rarely poured on the West Coast, to serenade the lonesome highway strip. (Bernardo Rondeau)

Rodrigo y Gabriela at Temple Bar

She chops the blurry power chords and staccato accents as if she’s at the cutting board in the kitchen. He sprinkles on the onions and intricate lead-guitar filigrees, and salts everything with dazzling counterpoints of melody. Then they beat on their guitars, rolling up approaching thunder with exacting rhythmic precision. Given their classical techniques, Rodrigo y Gabriela have been lumped in with some sort of new flamenco scene, but the charismatic Mexican duo are much more influenced by the ornate grandeur of heavy metal. A version of “Orion,” from their new self-titled CD (unobtrusively produced by John Leckie), transmutes the icy menace of the Metallica instrumental with the expressive purity of acoustic guitars, and their jazzy take on “Stairway to Heaven” is similarly well-crafted, although it skates a little too smoothly into easy listening. The most potent magic lingers in Rodrigo y Gabriela’s passionately detailed originals, such as the courtly “Tamacun” and the roller-coaster-inspired dynamics of “Diablo Rojo” — not to mention the album’s accompanying DVD, in which the pair reveal their tricks, including how to not kill an alligator. (Falling James)