Rock Picks: Tegan & Sara, Patti Smith, Stereolab

 
Dar Williams at El Rey Theatre

For a songwriter who’s supported liberal causes and explored themes of gender identity and religious freedom, Dar Williams tends to make some fairly conservative music. The songs on her latest CD, Promised Land (Razor & Tie), are certainly tuneful in a pleasant, mainstream way, but the often-bland musical settings belie the ambition of much of her lyrics. “Buzzer” is a fascinating tale involving a researcher’s ambivalence about administering electroshock treatments to a hapless patient; while the semi-circusy keyboards are meant to be an ironic contrast to the lyrics’ heavy subject matter, the music ultimately comes across as slick and shallow. Williams takes the trouble in her liner notes to thank her old college pal Stephen Trask for introducing to her such wildly arty musicians as Nina Hagen and Yoko Ono, but her version of “Midnight Radio” (from Trask’s Hedwig & the Angry Inch) is a very hollow facsimile of such adventurous risk-takers, despite her solemnly worshipful shout-outs to “Patti and Tina and . . . Aretha and Nona.” Guest star Suzanne Vega’s true-blue vocals help to elevate the breezy “Go to the Woods,” but the rest of Williams’ words here deserve richer, darker accompaniment than the all-too-easy easy-listening backing producer Brad Wood has given her. (Falling James)

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Also playing Thursday:

CHIODOS, SILVERSTEIN, ESCAPE THE FATE at the Wiltern; THE POLYAMOROUS AFFAIR at the Bordello; THE SKATALITES at Brixton South Bay; SONNY LANDRETH at the Canyon; HELEN STELLAR at the Echo; TINA DICO at the Hotel Café; TAJ MAHAL & THE PHANTOM BLUES BAND at House of Blues; JILL SOBULE, JULIA SWEENEY at Largo at the Coronet; THE STARLITE DESPERATION at Silverlake Lounge; THE BLACK WIDOWS at Taix; PILAR DIAZ at SiteLA; UGLY DUCKLING at Little Temple.