Rock Picks: Pelican, Herman Dune, Rasputina, Bill Frisell, Random Patterns

FRIDAY, MARCH 27

Pelican, Wolves in the Throne Room, Tombs at the Troubadour

Pelican, formerly of Chicago, now in L.A., and signed to Southern Lord

Gloria Trevi: Vivid, vulgar and charming all at once

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More About

• Gloria Trevi
• Lily Allen
• John Payne
• Bill Frisell
• Rasputina

Hugely heavy-hairy metallic Earth-doom thrashing ’round your stoned skull on the phones whilst you shop for your new Pelican T-shirts, bags, hoodies, badges, well, they’re a cottage industry now, ain’t they, but it couldn’t have happened to a more righteously epic buncha experimental-film-score-surfy-hot-rod-desert-dream dudes. The little girls understand, so do the boys who love ’em, how two minutes of enormous-whomping-fuzzy-tidal-wave-out-of-Chicago lads Pelican (now L.A.-based) can corkscrew one’s head in novel positions, and 20 minutes (it’ll be the same song) can change your life forever — for the better. They have had the good sense to align themselves with two trademarks of quality, namely the Hydrahead and Southern Lord labels, and right about — now! — they’re at the very peak of their brain-plowing prowess, guaranteed to blast all comers all the way back to the muthafuggin’ bungalow. With Wolves in the Throne Room and Tombs. (John Payne)

Gloria Trevi at Gibson Amphitheatre

Infamous south-of-the-border pop belter Gloria Trevi has well and truly got it all. A pepper-hot stage persona, a wildly physical presentation equal parts semiacrobatic dance moves and indecent come-hither abandon, a high-volume hypercrunchy melodic dynamism and a singularly lurid reputation — the black honey of her past as a convict and international fugitive running from criminal charges of procuring and exploiting a gaggle of teenage aspirants as sexual playthings for her then-manager. And, perhaps best of all, a lyrical penchant for championing women’s rights and skewering the fragile machismo congenital to so many Hispanic males. A sociocultural whirlwind La Trevi is, and in performance all of it combines for an eye-popping display of unbridled celebration. Vivid, vulgar and charming all at once, Trevi even makes rock & roll libertine Alejandra Guzman seem tame by comparison (and that, kiddies, is no small feat), but her mix of showstopping high jinks and indomitable survivalism ranks her as one of the most arresting (no pun intended) Mexi-pop temptresses of all time. (Jonny Whiteside)

Cold War Kids at the Orpheum Theatre

Even with the economy heading south, Long Beach’s Cold War Kids continue their ascent in the pop-rock world, opening for more famous bands (the White Stripes) and headlining in bigger venues like the Orpheum. Their recent CD, Loyalty to Loyalty (Downtown Records), is mounted on swirling riffs and massive hooks, while Nathan Willett’s airy, pleading falsetto vocals deliver unexpected insights. “Earthquake in your pajamas, huddled in doorways while your houses sway ... you never really know what you can’t really see ... everything will be explained,” he promises on “Relief” while Matt Maust holds things down with a spiny bass line. There’s a Velvet Underground stomp to such songs as “Something Is Not Right With Me,” and elsewhere Willett’s and Jonnie Russell’s luminescent guitars unwind with a Radiohead-style sheen. Yet, for all of their influences and their taste for experimental remixes, underneath it all, they write memorable, distinctive songs. (Falling James)

Also playing Friday:

PETE ROCK at the Key Club; 3OH!3, A ROCKET TO THE MOON, FAMILY FORCE 5, HIT THE LIGHTS, THE MAINE at Avalon; CARNEY at Vanguard; GLISS, THE TAKEOVER UK at Spaceland; THE ASTEROIDS GALAXY TOUR at the Echo.

SATURDAY, MARCH 28

Women, Chad VanGaalen at Spaceland

Calgary’s Women is most certainly a band founded upon contradiction. There’s the name of course (the quartet can only muster two pairs of X chromosomes between them), but it extends to their musical DNA as well. On the one hand, the experimental zeal of This Heat appears to be alive and well in this crew’s taste for industrial skronk, monotone vocals, drone-outs and angular guitar fits. On the other, Women is just as prone to extended passages of lackadaisical pop beauty à la Zombies. Most importantly, rather than tow the psych-rock middle ground between these influences, the band’s eponymous debut (released by Jagjaguwar last year) oscillates wildly between the two, which makes it a crisply challenging document as prone to turning out lovely singles (“Black Rice”) as it is works of pure art (“Shaking Hand”). The album was made on tape machines and boom boxes in the basement of Chad VanGaalen, the Sub Pop folk-rock tinkerer who headlines this show. (Chris Martins)

Herman Dune at the Natural History Museum

“Alternative bands once avoided melody. No longer,” ran a recent headline in Newsweek about the return of hummable tunes to indie rock. There are many possible reasons for its absence: punk versus pop snobbery, focus on rhythm (both punk and hip-hop are beat-centric), or shameful inability to write a decent hook. French duo Herman Dune are champs of the sing-along song. Their lyrical eccentricities, whimsical vocals and small-label status make them legitimately “indie,” but their catchy melodies are welcomed by one’s frontal lobe, and they ensure that your hippocampus will remind you of them long after a listen. Guitarist David-Ivar Herman Dune sings and writes mirth like “Baby Is Afraid of Sharks” and the gorgeous title track, “Next Year In Zion,” from their most recent album. “Brother” Néman Herman Dune drums and sings harmonies. As I pay bills, the piper, and dues, I play Herman Dune on the box of boom to stave off the doom. We’re all afraid of sharks these days, baby. (Michael Simmons)