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Jeff the Brotherhood 1:30-2:15 PlayStation stage Nashville two-piece Jeff the Brotherhood is—and presumably always will be—Jake and Jamin Orrall, siblings who’ve already spent years bashing out hazy, uplifting garage punk with just a guitar and a drum kit. Recently they’ve been expanding their palette a bit, and it sounds like they used every instrument in the studio to make the new Hypnotic Nights (Warner Brothers). Fat synth blasts cut through organ melodies, horns and violins gild the arrangements, and sweet vocal harmonies ring throughout. But deep down, every new Jeff the Brotherhood song shares something vital with every old Jeff the Brotherhood song: at its heart this is still gnarly rock, and crunchy guitar licks and propulsive drumming are what make it go. Also Fri 8/3 at Subterranean, 17+. —Leor Galil
Aloe Blacc2:15-3:00 Red Bull SoundstageAloe Blacc—born Egbert Nathaniel Dawkins III—has a thing for socially conscious 70s-style soul, and a special affinity for Bill Withers and Donny Hathaway. His album Good Things (Stones Throw) is a collaboration with Truth & Soul Productions—aka Leon Michels and Jeff Silverman, who’ve also done wonders with Lee Fields—and their punchy horn and string charts help compensate for the lack of range in Blacc’s reedy voice, allowing him to concentrate on his agile, expertly expressive phrasing. The elegantly hooky tunes ride on simmering midtempo soul grooves touched with reggae and funk, and though the lyrics aren’t especially profound, they’re timely—the lead track, “I Need a Dollar,” was the theme song of HBO series How to Make It in America. —Peter Margasak
Bloc Party 7:00-8:00 Sony stage It’s funny that Bloc Party‘s Lolla set overlaps with Franz Ferdinand’s; both are British postpunk groups that blew up in the mid-aughts on the strength of hyped-up debuts (Silent Alarm and Franz Ferdinand, respectively), released two more albums with diminishing returns, and ended up postmillennial “indie rock” elder statesmen from whom most folks don’t expect any exciting new music. Of the two, Bloc Party has the advantage—at least to my ears. The band may never re-create the emotionally taut dance-punk of its first album, but subsequent albums’ failure to capture that same magic has at least resulted in interesting listens. Back after a brief hiatus, Bloc Party will probably focus on material from the forthcoming Four (Frenchkiss), but I’m hoping for a lot of Silent Alarm cuts too. —Leor Galil
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For something a little more useful, check out our list of afterparties.
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