Rock Picks: Amanda Palmer, Metallica, War Tapes

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 16

Amanda Palmer at Henry Fonda Theater

We’re still bummed that the theatrical cabaret-punk duo the Dresden Dolls are on an extended hiatus, but it’s not like the band’s lead singer/songwriter/pianist/performance artist/madwoman Amanda Palmer has been quiet lately. Earlier this year, she released her first solo album, Who Killed Amanda Palmer? (Roadrunner), a breathtaking assortment of passionate, piano-pumped songs that features contributions from an unlikely group of disparate musical guest stars, including Dead Kennedys guitarist East Bay Ray, former Rasputina cellist Zoe Keating (who opens with her own set tonight) and mainstream pop merchant Ben Folds, who also produced the CD. While the Dresden Dolls occasionally expanded their minimalist piano-drums attack with additional instrumentation in the studio, Palmer is able to take more chances and lavish her complicated-but-catchy tunes with grander arrangements on her solo album. There’s a newfound rubbery groove and electronic-pop forcefulness to such songs as “Guitar Hero,” while the swanky, horns-fueled “Leeds United” and “Oasis” bounce with a deceptively giddy poppiness. Meanwhile, the momentous piano ballad “The Point of It All” evokes convulsively emotional Dresden Dolls anthems like “Truce.” (Falling James)

War Tapes at Spaceland

Of all the local fruit fallen close to Interpol’s tree (and therefore Joy Division’s roots), War Tapes most warm the formula with flesh-and-blood vulnerability, organic instrumentation, and the sheer lust-to-be-a-pop-star of front boy Neil Popkin. Shunning the studied deadpan melodrama and neon nightclub innuendos of She Wants Revenge, they explore more introverted, openly lonely utterances and charm our (drainpipe) pants off when Popkin’s tortured baritone converses with his bassist-sister Becca’s distracted injections. War Tapes know how to play the game — matching faux-military New Romantic garb; angular 24 Hour Party People haircuts; of-the-moment shimmering/shuddering guitars and imploring choruses — yet they retain a family-affair air (drummer Billy Mohler is Becca’s hubby) that keeps musical matters, however stylized, this side of pretentious. For all of War Tapes’ live experience (they’ve opened for Smashing Pumpkins, the Bravery and Tiger Army), it’s still easy to imagine Popkin perfecting his dictatorial onstage gesticulations in front of the bedroom mirror while spinning Turn on the Bright Lights for the thousandth time. And that’s bloody brilliant, that is. (Paul Rogers)

Mercury Rev at El Rey Theatre

These veteran New York psychedelicists have made enough fine records — check out their best, 1993’s Boces, as well as 1998’s Deserter’s Songs, which made them huge critical faves in England — to justify looking past the occasional clunker. That’s a good thing, since the just-released Snowflake Midnight — a largely tuneless mishmash of treacly piano plinks and singer Jonathan Donahue’s helium-high vocals laid over limp electronic grooves — is a clunker (unless you’re of the opinion that what Deserter’s really needed was a remix by Moby). There’s no doubting that you’ll hear plenty from the new album tonight; if you’re lucky, they won’t skip “Butterfly’s Wings,” which at least manages some forward momentum. Crummy material or not, though, Mercury Rev are still worth catching live for the way they conjure entire galaxies of sound onstage: Everybody in Indieland seems dedicated to laser-show atmospherics these days, but these guys were tripping out way before doing so was an obligation. (Mikael Wood)

Also playing Tuesday:

JIM BIANCO, IAN BALL at the Hotel Café; CHEAP TRICK at House of Blues; J.D. SOUTHER, APRIL SMITH, LUCY WAINWRIGHT ROCHE at Largo; THE RANDIES at Mr. T’s Bowl; MIKE STINSON at Redwood Bar & Grill; THE SWORD, YEAR LONG DISASTER at the Viper Room; ANNA OXYGEN, DEVON WILLIAMS at Hyperion Taver; EULOGIES, SARA LOV at Space 15 Twenty, 6 p.m.

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 17

Metallica, The Sword at the Forum

It’s not just that Metallica’s latest, Death Magnetic, makes St. Anger look like St. Hugging It Out, but, for the first time in more than 20 years (before And Justice For All), the band have an angst that is more visceral than negotiated. If you didn’t hear the years of living and learning in songs like the “Broken, Beat & Scarred,” you’d think that this was the same band that just ransacked their way to the cover of Metal Hammer magazine. Out is producer Bob Rock and in is Rick Rubin, who applied his back-to-old-school discipline to achieve a lean-and-mean 10-song tongue lashing that is as true to Metallica’s definitive sound as it is to their original love of NWOBHM. Don’t spend too much time tailgating in the heavy-metal parking lot, because you can’t miss The Sword. These guys look/sound like the dirtbags who stumbled out of a smoky stoner van when I first saw Metallica open for Ozzy at Nassau Coliseum in 1986. Glam-metal Ozzy could have been mistaken for Aunt Pearl at my bar mitzvah that summer, but these kids yelling for “Metallica!” were still scary. Also Thurs. (Daniel Siwek)