As ska devolves further from its Jamaican roots in the late 1950s, the genre these days often replaces soul and imagination with jock-rock conformity, transforming ska's madly insidious rhythms and uplifting messages into mere background music for frat parties. Of course, the Two-Tone revival in Britain in the early '80s helped reinvigorate the genre and give it new life, but so much modern ska is merely escapist and shallow. The Interrupters don't add anything new to the style, but singer Aimee Allen imbues her band with just enough personality and hooks to justify the whole affair. If tracks such as “A Friend Like Me” don't really evoke Jamaica's diversity and violent contradictions, they're at least mindlessly catchy, with suburban-punk guitars and Allen's gruff, Joan Jett–like phrasing.

Mon., Aug. 4, 7 p.m., 2014
(Expired: 08/04/14)

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