Be sure to check out our constantly updated concert calendar!

Monday, May 19

Lykke Li
THEATRE AT ACE HOTEL
There is an aching loneliness at the heart of Lykke Li's best songs. Her new single, “Love Me Like I'm Not Made of Stone,” is quite moving, with little more than faint guitar backing as raw heartache pours out of her as if from an open cut. “No Rest for the Wicked,” from the Swedish singer's new album, I Never Learn, belies its predictable lyrics with austere vocals and a guest rap by A$AP Rocky, who breaks up the pop tune's candied production with a dose of straight-talking reality. “Just Like a Dream” lives up to its title, with an ethereal arrangement of distant drum rolls and haunting piano buttressing Li's lovelorn vocals. In general, she sounds much better when the more stripped-down production matches the intimacy of her delivery. – Falling James
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Tuesday, May 20

For the Fallen Dreams
COBALT CAFÉ
With guitarist Jim Hocking the only constant factor over its decade-plus history, Michigan metalcore mainstay For the Fallen Dreams is more of a transplantable musical manifesto than a chemistry among specific individuals. Over 11 years and 25 members, FtFD has, however, developed from DIY deathcore to accomplished, borderline melodic hardcore. With people's-choice frontman Chad Ruhlig returned to the mic, the now-foursome is somehow even more lithely fearsome in single-guitar format, its violence increasingly generated by disjointed rhythmic salvoes and Ruhlig's disgusted, cast-all-before-me roar, which is offset with twinkly guitar and “clean” vocal subplots. Metalcore may have run its course as an expressive force, but For the Fallen Dreams is at least going out with a wonderfully nuanced bang. – Paul Rogers
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Wednesday, May 21

Wake Owl, Mimicking Birds
THE ECHO
It's no wonder the music of Wake Owl's Colyn Cameron has an earthy quality to it: He studied organic agriculture before turning to music. His debut album, The Private World of Paradise, offers a bumper crop of rich, reverb-laden folk-rock, given extra pop gloss by producer Richard Swift (The Shins, Foxygen). Fans of Lord Huron, POP ETC and other folkies with a dream-pop bent will love Cameron's quietly offbeat tunes. Opener Mimicking Birds take a similar palette in a darker direction, using their echoing guitars to underscore the wistfulness in singer-songwriter Nate Lacy's sleepy vocals. Their latest album, Eons, just released on Glacial Pace Records, is a beautifully barren winter landscape of a record, full of songs that invite further exploration even as they send a shiver down your back. – Andy Hermann

Thursday, May 22

Ty Dolla $ign
EL REY
Los Angeles native Ty Dolla $ign is a quadruple threat. Originally trained in bass guitar, the “My Cabana” rapper is the son of Tyrone Griffin, keyboardist from late-'70s/early-'80s funk band Lakeside. Ty was also the writer and producer behind L.A. rapper YG's 2010 smash hit, “Toot It and Boot It.” In January, Ty released his debut EP, Beach House, on Wiz Khalifa's Taylor Gang imprint and has since appeared on The Tonight Show and Arsenio Hall, among others. Tonight's all-ages show features Joe Moses and Mila J. VIP ticket packages include a meet-and-greet and personal photograph with Ty, as well as a specially designed snapback. ? – Jacqueline Michael Whatley

Billy Eli
EL CID
“Don't you worry about what we've got in Texas – worry about how much of it we've got,” the late, great Ernest Tubb used to say, and country-rock seditionary Billy Eli brings bales of that stylish, Lone Star braggadocio. The Austin, Texas, honky-tonk swashbuckler is capable of hard-rocking derring-do, ribald, just-for-the-hell-of-it revelry and penetrating, profoundly touching balladry. Critical case in point is Eli's “People Like Us,” a song inspired by his autistic son, which is magnificently bittersweet yet fraught with hope and tenderness (“We don't live like the rest of the world does/But the world wasn't built for people like us”). Eli's ability to span such a range so effortlessly is a rare and beautiful thing, and he manages it with a brilliantly rowdy, relaxed manner. – Jonny Whiteside

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