Ten Coachella Picks: Ariel Pink, Genghis Tron, Vivian Girls, Mastodon

Mastodon (Saturday, April 18)

Someone is going to get punched in the face. And not just like the hissy-fit near-riot that happened at last year’s MIA performance, but in a way that incorporates all the wrath of an astral-traveling quadriplegic who flew too close to the sun and was consumed by the spirit of Rasputin. Because that’s the story inside Mastodon’s newest critical darling, Crack the Skye. The Atlanta band’s fourth album shreds in every sense of the word. Time signatures shift with excessive speed, outmatched only by the velocity of thrashing guitars and shockwave drums. Vocalist Brent Hinds stutters between the whining drawl of quintessential ’70s heavy rock and a throaty, guttural snarl that just barely touches the precipice of screaming (but thankfully never really screams). It’s enough to make a reincarnated czar in a wheelchair want to stand up. (BP)

MSTRKRFT (Saturday, April 18)

A firestorm on laptops, MSTRKRFT cranks out grating, punkish synths and pogos atop the ho-hum drum line of club culture. The Toronto-based duo of Al Puodziukas and Jesse Frederick Keeler has rock-band roots and machine soul, and is part of the vanguard of nu-electro acts crashing the dance party to try and outfunk Daft Punk. While too many of the breed are way too cool to actually sustain a groove, MSTRKRFT is a natural in the club, belting out waves of industrialized hypnosis: You are getting indie. With Fist of God, featuring John Legend, Ghostface Killah and more, MSTRKRFT reveals its pop ambition to topple Justice. No need to try so hard. The French act doesn’t hold a candle to these Canucks. (DR)

Vivian Girls (Sunday, April 19)

When Brooklyn’s fuzz-pop queens Vivian Girls bring their grungy West Coast surf and girl-group sound to the desert, lead singer Cassie Ramone will probably utter her lyrics with the disaffected look of someone simultaneously bored and saddened by the fact that she has to be singing at all. That’s how she does it, but the momentum of the songs’ melodies forces her to continue, and this tension is magnetic. The threesome, on L.A.’s In the Red Records, offers infectiously sloppy pop that slithers and slides coolly around choruses and breaks, rising and crashing like high tide. The band’s debut is a jangly mess of harmonizing guitar slop with a dash of ’90s grunge punk thrown in for good measure. (ND)

Mexican Institute of Sound (Sunday, April 19)

Mexican Institute of Sound’s name is brainier than its party-appropriate mixes let on, but M.I.S.’s boundless blended tubas, electronic riffs, accordions, guitarrón strums, drunken cowbells and thundering, bottomed-out bass beats could only come from the schooled mind of a consummate and sophisticated vinyl hoarder. Camilo Lara — mixmaster of M.I.S. — brings the kaleidoscopic madness of his hometown, Mexico City, into the flux, and he can woo a crowd like an old-fashioned Mexican canción, wielding technical avarice and an ecstatic delivery. Unlike most MCs (who dangle their arms down with one shoulder holding the headphones), Lara gets ’em up immediately with an oom-pa-pa bounce that rolls with a glossy, pimped-out fatness — it’ll be the perfect elixir for a hot Sunday afternoon. (WG)

My Bloody Valentine (Sunday, April 19)

When My Bloody Valentine performed at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium last year, the sound nearly blew scalps off of skulls. It was of such volume and intensity — those screaming, feedbacking, tortured guitars pouring melodic drone and shimmering dissonance — that you had to wonder whether it was too much. With such fury, it was tough to hear what main Valentine Kevin Shields was trying to do, exactly. Coachella offers a different, potentially more rewarding way to catch said legendarily explosive sonics: If My Bloody Valentine is too loud, all you have to do is step back a few feet. Or a few more. Or maybe more. Careful you don’t fall off the edge of the world. (Randall Roberts)