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Published: Feb 19, 2008

An early contender for Unsettling Album Cover of the Year, The Evening Descends by Evangelicals features this bug-eyed, blue-skinned corpse-faced thing staring out all upset from a colorful arrangement of stars and branches. It's apt artwork, since the deconstructionist tunes contained within are, at their core, pop music. The Norman, Okla., trio just opts to present them as skewed distressed as inhumanly possible.

—John Vettese

Mon., Feb. 25, $8-$10, 8 p.m., with Headlights, Johnny Brenda's, 1201 N. Frankford Ave., johnnybrendas.com.

As far as garage pop revivalists from the Max's Kansas City-era go, Peter Zaremba's Fleshtones are the naughty-but-nice guys. Not only does singer/organist Zaremba keep his snot-rag factor to an Iggy-esque high on their new CD, Take a Good Look (Yep Roc): The Fleshtones also manage to ladle out the sugar throughout its newest songs for the sound of sappy contagion and street-walking cheetah-ism that can't be stamped out with even the pointiest of Beatle boots. Philly's harder-edged garage-o-philes, Jukebox Zeros, open with an opportunity for fans to get in their very first video. Line up.

—A.D. Amorosi

Thu., Feb. 21, 8 p.m., $10, Johnny Brenda's, 1201 N. Frankford Ave., 866-468-7619, johnnybrendas.com.

Last summer, Ingrid Michaelson taught an after-school theater program in her Staten Island neighborhood between club gigs. Now she's got the No. 2 pop CD spot on iTunes, or she did recently, with her catchy and charming Girls and Boys. Grey's Anatomy exposure certainly didn't hurt (Michaelson's "Keep Breathing" ended the season with a jolt), nor did her years of road warriorism. The self-produced album's exploration of love — lost, found, discarded — is made all the more jarring by sunny melodies that belie this twentysomething's often melancholic lyrics.

—Nicole Pensiero

Fri., Feb. 22, 7:30 p.m., $23-$33, with David Ford and Matthew Perryman Jones, World Café Live, 3025 Walnut St., 215-222-1400, worldcafelive.com.

Even John Darnielle can be wrong sometimes. So even though the Mountain Goats' impresario told a crowd at the North Star last fall that his touring partners, impressive Raleigh folk act Bowerbirds, put out an album that was in fact better than his own, don't buy it. The shabbily recorded Hymns for a Dark Horse is vaguely pleasant at best, more painful than early Devendra Banhart demos at worst. For now, the stage is the place where this trio shines through accordions, reverberant bass drums, tambourines and charm.

—John Vettese

Tue., Feb. 26, 8 p.m., $10, with Phosphorescent and Gianmarco Cilli, Johnny Brenda's, 1201 N. Frankford Ave., johnnybrendas.com.

Billy Milano's place in history is secure as the frontman of S.O.D., the band whose bludgeoning riffery became the theme music for MTV's "Headbangers Ball" and whose lyrics strove to offend everyone in sight. But the credit for S.O.D.'s silly genius lay squarely at the feet of Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian, who conceived the band and recruited current and former bandmates. Milano's spin-off, Method of Destruction, was always a disappointing cousin, with less distinctive hardcore riffs and political incorrectness without the original's goofball wit. But live, the band can coast on raw energy, and Milano can intersperse dozens of S.O.D.'s 30-second assaults without breaking a sweat.

—Shaun Brady

Sun., Feb. 24, 8 p.m., $10, with D.T.O., the Murderkill 100 and Streetlight Susie, Khyber, 56 S. Second St., 215-238-5888, thekhyber.com.

Before you do the stromboli dance because one of the few Italian guys in the hyperactive world of the dippy, jam-jazz head is coming back to Philly, know this: Benevento's newest album, the three-CD Live at Tonic (MRI Associated), is the keyboardist's best run at hard experimental bop yet. Here in Philly, Benevento, bassist Reed Mathis and drummer Andrew Barr will be playing down rhythms meatier than bracciolle.

—A.D. Amorosi

Sat., Feb. 23, 9 p.m., $13-$18, World Café Live, 3025 Walnut St., 215-222-1400, worldcafelive.com.

 

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