Rock Picks: The Ting Tings, The Fratellis, Rilo Kiley

 
Also playing Monday:

LIL WAYNE at House of Blues; WADDY WACHTEL at the Joint; AFTERNOONS, EVEREST at Spaceland.

Pamela Littky

Rilo Kiley wait for the Greek Theatre's parking lot to clear.

Autumn De Wilde

Nature girl: Jesse Sykes

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TUESDAY, JUNE 17

ISLANDS at the Henry Fonda Theater; CITIZEN FISH at the Echo; AIRBORNE TOXIC EVENT, DEADLY SYNDROME, HENRY CLAY PEOPLE at Spaceland; DEVON WILLIAMS at Amoeba Music, 7 p.m.

 
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 18

Rilo Kiley at the Greek Theatre

There was a hilarious post last year on the Idolator blog (http://idolator.com/tunes/rilo-kiley/) in which longtime Rilo Kiley fan Kate Richardson linked a decline in the quality of the band’s music with the rise of singer Jenny Lewis’ hemlines. While I don’t agree that Rilo Kiley’s music has really gotten worse on their most recent CD, Under the Blacklight, it is true that Lewis has been wearing more hot pants and glittery outfits in recent years, a contrast with the frumpier pants and longer skirts she used to wear. The implication is that it was easier to identify with Lewis when she was dressed down and singing self-deprecating country-laced indie-rock songs. But her change into glossier duds and the band’s concurrent expansion into new musical territory, such as the Staxy soul of “15,” the rock en español of “Dejalo” and the soothing disco-pop shine of Blake Sennett’s “Dreamworld,” are not necessarily bad things. They’re just extra disguises and outfits to hang in the closet until the proper occasion arrives. Even with all of Rilo Kiley’s stylistic mutations, there’s always a warm glow at the center of their music. (Falling James)

Also playing Wednesday:

DAVID RODIGAN, RANKING JOE, LITTLE JOHN, EXTRA GOLDEN, EL TAMBOR at the Echo; ROSE ROSSI at the Hotel Café; MORGAN HERITAGE at the Key Club; LIAM FINN at Largo; MIDNIGHT MOVIES at Spaceland; ELENI MANDELL at Tangier.

THURSDAY, JUNE 19

 
Jesse Sykes & the Sweet Hereafter at the Echo

Jesse Sykes is a good witch. The Seattle singer is one of this country’s leading practitioners of hypnotic balladry, and she casts dreamy spells that are gently and subtly entrancing. Whereas Cat Power has a touch more soul and R&B in her similarly lulling music, Jesse Sykes & the Sweet Hereafter infuse their songs with more of countrified lilt while evoking the pastoral sweep and distinctively shadowy sylvan loneliness of the Pacific Northwest. Her solemn vocals and a coyote-howl harmonica light up the stark landscape of “Eisenhower Moon,” from her 2006 CD, Like, Love, Lust & the Open Halls of the Soul (Barsuk), while “Spectral Beings” lives up to its title with shivery harmonies and former Whiskeytown guitarist Phil Wandscher’s austere plucking. Not everything is so mellow, and bassist Bill Herzog and drummer Eric Eagle give the occasional uptempo tune like “You Might Walk Away” a bit of a Crazy Horse push. Still, we’ll be at the Echo just so we can close our eyes and drift away to billowing melodies like “How Will We Know?” (Falling James)

Hayes Carll, Old 97’s at Crash Mansion

It seems like Texas has more singer-songwriters than the other 49 states combined — but it also produces some damn talented ones. Houston-born Hayes Carll is a rising star following in the tradition of such sharp-tongued storytellers as Townes Van Zandt, Steve Earle, Robert Earl Keen and Guy Clark. Carll populates his Lost Highway debut, Trouble in Mind (which follows several critically praised, little-heard indie releases), with a colorful cast of characters. There’s Kate, “who’s as pretty as a plate,” and the guy whose girl dumped him for Jesus (“And that’s not fair/She says that’s he’s perfect/How can I compare?”), as well as the “barefoot shrimper with a pistol up his sleeve” and “an old lion tamer parked behind the bar.” Following his impressive Stagecoach set, Carll brings his rascally roadhouse music back to the Southland as he opens for the Texas-bred Old 97’s, whose new disc, Blame It on Gravity, soars with the band’s distinctive toe-tapping twang pop. (Michael Berick)

Nico Vega at the Viper Room

With just vocals, guitar and drums, Nico Vega transmit an orchestra’s worth of sultry, sometimes surly sentiment. The trio marry tenuously related sonic elements — adventurous, occasionally frantic garage grooves; alternately arpeggiated and dissonantly ominous guitar; Aja Volkman’s smoky-Siouxsie-vs.- sweet-&-sour-Björk vocals — with thinking-hipster’s rock (imagine the Like, only with actual problems). Onstage, it’s all about the wide-eyed, wackily fashionable Volkman stomping, strutting and sweating in defiance of her svelte, catwalk-ready aura. This perpetual buzz band (who are yet to even release an album — their debut’s due in October) flirt with melody rather than beat us over the head with hooks, seemingly tiring of each idea before the listener’s even fully grasped it. Admirable, but Nico Vega’s structural perversity is both their best mate and worst enemy: It keeps us coming back for more and earns muso cred points, but ultimately stems the seemingly inevitable mass-adulation tide. (Paul Rogers)