Rock Picks: Rain Machine, Pearl Jam, Wallpaper, Bon Iver, Dodos

Hope Sandoval & the Warm Inventions at Hollywood Forever Cemetery
At last, Hope Sandoval has found the appropriate setting to unveil her funereal, languidly enchanting songs. The trees, tombs and ghosts at Hollywood Forever Cemetery will bear solemn witness as she coos the darkly romantic ballads from her latest CD, Through the Devil Softly (Nettwerk). Although she’s best known for her time in Mazzy Star, Sandoval has been singing to half-hidden spirits for much of her life, starting with the obscure mid-’80s Alhambra teenage acoustic duo Going Home, where she set the template for such sweetly morbid spellbinding long before Chan Marshall discovered her own catlike powers. (Some enterprising label should put out Going Home’s unreleased recordings, which blend childlike innocence and eerie obsession in a way that’s starker and more chilling than her later work with Mazzy Star.) With the Warm Inventions, Sandoval heats up — a little — raking together muted strains of piano, guitar and cello to cobble up a gently mesmerizing glow at the heart of a glassy, icy world. (Falling James)

Eric Martin

Purple gaze: Rain Machine’s Kyp Malone

Dan Stack

Hanging around: Wye Oak

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Also playing Tuesday:

OLD CROW MEDICINE SHOW, DIRT BLUE GENE at the John Anson Ford Theater; STEEP CANYON RANGERS at Largo; BEN HARPER, BENJI MADDEN, JOEL MADDEN, JONNY LANG, SHERYL CROW at Club Nokia; TIM EXILE, WE ARE THE WORLD at the Echo; THE 88, QUAZAR AND THE BAMBOOZLED, PIERRE DE REEDER, OH DARLING at Spaceland; FOOL’S GOLD at Amoeba Music.

Pearl Jam, Ben Harper & Relentless7 at the Gibson Amphitheatre
With the possible exception of Fucked Up, Pearl Jam are probably the last band in the world you’d expect to pair with a big-box retailer to distribute a new studio album. As of this past Tuesday, though — provided you’re among the great number of Americans who live without the Internet in a city without a mom-and-pop record store — the only place to buy PJ’s Backspacer is Target. (While you’re there you can pick up Christina Aguilera’s Target-only Keeps Gettin’ Better: A Decade of Hits.) Backspacer is a back-to-basics blast of post-grunge rock that feels as vital as anything they’ve done before; it should silence skeptics who think these indie-minded Seattlites have gone (or stayed) corporate in more than a technical sense. Folk-rock fave Ben Harper released his first album with Relentless7 (instead of the Innocent Criminals) earlier this year; like much of his work, it’s a little dull but certainly means well. Also Thurs. (Mikael Wood)

Seasons at the Silverlake Lounge
Highland Park’s Seasons really pile on the shimmering keyboards, fuzz-heavy guitars, saturated synths, loads of effects pedals and an occasional beating laptop, accordion or harmonica riffing in the background. It’s a messy place to start, but the pieces always fall together to form a dreamy emo-pop concoction. Needless to say, Seasons’ sound is full and showy, building up to great heights then lilting low into soft, cuddly breakdowns. These guys are true sentimentalists, with their Christmas lights strewn on the stage and “I Heart Highland Park” stickers on their gear, hints of late nights listening to the Cure and the Beatles’ love songs over and over again are evident in the their work. But these six Eastside bros (plus other musical pals who get thrown into the mix from time to time) aren’t all goo on the inside. They’re not afraid to show their man feelings because they can shred too — especially when they channel their inner jam band. After releasing their EP Summer in August — with help from the Movies’ Timothy James — they’ve played around town a ton (at L’Keg, Mr. T’s and Echo Curio) and made a place for themselves on several “band to watch” lists. (Wendy Gilmartin)

Also playing Wednesday:

ALICE IN CHAINS at Avalon; DATAROCK, ESSER, KAV at El Rey Theatre; EASTERN CONFERENCE CHAMPIONS, VOXHAUL BROADCAST, SAMUEL STEWART, RADIO FREQ at the Echo; PAPER ROUTE, TOY HORSES at Spaceland; STEEP CANYON RANGERS at Largo at the Coronet; SOULS OF MISCHIEF at the Troubadour.

Pocahaunted, Experimental Dental School, Foot Village, Railcars at The Smell
As far as pun-y portmanteaus go, you’d be hard-pressed to find one more aptly conceived than this Eagle Rock band’s name. Pocahaunted — helmed by Amanda and Britt Brown of Not Not Fun Records — sounds quite literally like the halfway point between a rain dance and a séance. The band’s dubby, trance-inducing tribal jams bring New York’s Gang Gang Dance to mind, but in a heavier, more analog way. Portland’s Experimental Dental School (or PDX’s XDS if you’re into that whole brevity thing) combines complex pop arrangements with post-punk’s perfectly tinned melodic ear to create a rainy but cheerful sound not unlike Deerhoof’s. Foot Village is a different beast entirely — a “drum-n-shout” ensemble from Hollywood whose co-ed membership crowds around four kits worth of drums, and pounds the shit out of them while barking out lyrics hailing from “the first nation built after the foreseeable apocalypse.” They even made an album of the stuff, Anti-Magic, and its cover is bedecked with the collective’s naked bodies as they wage war against a strange wizard. (Chris Martins)