Rock Picks

FRIDAY, November 3

Love Is All at the Echo

It’s time to get happy in indie land when this smiley-faced band of Swedes hits the spot. Gaining furious momentum across the blogosphere, these poppy post-punks charm with a delightfully unselfconscious joy, barreling through exuberant tunes like a teenager behind the wheel of his first car. Rife with bleating saxophones and melancholy melodies somewhere around early Psychedelic Furs and classic Romeo Void, their music can also rev it up with the best of them, like a sweeter version of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Love is All’s aptly titled album Nine Times That Same Song (What’s Your Rupture?) riffs all over the highs and lows of l-o-v-e both simply and effectively. Singer Josephine Olausson’s high-pitched yelp (Björk O?) overflows with childlike glee against scrappy guitars and highly danceable beats. Pogo party tonight! (Scott T. Sterling)

Deftones at Avalon

By their own admission, Sacramento’s Deftones can be a lazy bunch, a trait which seeps into singer Chino Moreno’s lugubrious, often-muttered utterances, and the stoner pall that permeates even their most lucid moments. Equally embracing Faith No More’s spanky rhythm section, Tool’s murky delving and the gauzy introspections of the Cure, Deftones have enormous crossover appeal which has never quite translated into through-the-roof sales. But now, with Limp Bizkit’s simian jock-rock gruntings — which gave the whole genre a bad name — hopefully gone for good, nu-metal pioneers like Deftones are rightfully being taken seriously again. Their suggestively titled new album, Saturday Night Wrist, is their most lithe and liberated to date; even now that they’re husbands and fathers, Deftones still sound like suburban latch-key kids letting it all out in the garage. Also Fri., Nov. 10. (Paul Rogers)

Also playing:

ROSWELL RUDD, BAD PLUS at Royce Hall (see Beauty/Noise); MINUS THE BEAR, VELVET TEEN at El Rey Theater; PET SHOP BOYSat the Wiltern; RAY LAMONTAGNE at the Orpheum Theatre; OKMONIKS, ST. JORGE & THE DRAGONS at Lava Lounge; IAN McLAGAN & THE BUMP BAND at the Mint; FUXA, TELESCOPESat Silverlake Lounge; QUINTO SOL at Temple Bar; JOSEPH ARTHURat the Troubadour.