thursday10
Thursday10
Eric AlexanderCannibal Corpse
Friday11
Eric AlexanderBreakawayFlaming LipsLeftoversPelican
Saturday5
Eric AlexanderBlack Bear ComboKeri HilsonMardukRussian CirclesWhite Car
Sunday13
Jason Adasiewicz’s RolldownEric AlexanderUnsilent Night
Monday14
Tyler Jon Tyler, Sleepovers
CANNIBAL CORPSE Pick up pretty much any Cannibal Corpse record and you’re guaranteed chugging riffage and machine-tight blastbeats, arranged into songs with titles like “Fucked With a Knife” and “Skull Full of Maggots.” The band advertise their love of gore with album artwork full of butchered bodies and flayed ghouls, and their lyrics—rendered borderline indecipherable by the throaty bark of George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher, who replaced original singer Chris Barnes in 1995—are just as reliably gruesome. It’s definitely a formula, but it’s still a fruitful one, and the group proves it on this year’s Evisceration Plague (Metal Blade). Cannibal Corpse are one of the longest-running and biggest-selling death-metal bands ever, and for years they’ve been a lightning rod for busybody politicians who take them too literally and see their very existence as a symptom of a grave societal ill. But to the musicians and fans they’ve inspired—Metalocalypse creator Brendon Small based Dethklok front man Nathan Explosion on Fisher—Cannibal Corpse are a brutal gift that keeps on giving. Hatebreed headline, in a booking decision that can only be characterized as a miscarriage of justice; Cannibal Corpse, Unearth, Hate Eternal, and Born of Osiris open. 4:45 PM, House of Blues, 329 N. Dearborn, 312-923-2000 or 312-559-1212, $27.50, $24.50 in advance. —Miles Raymer
BREAKWAY In May I blogged about the superb postbop album pianist Paul Giallorenzo had made with his quintet Get In to Go Out (which is now called GitGo, and plays Saturday night at Heaven Gallery), but like many local improvisers he maintains several different projects with distinct aesthetics and approaches. In the trio Breakway, Giallorenzo focuses on purely improvised abstraction, processing his piano with contact mikes and electronics or abandoning it entirely in favor of an analog synth. The music on Get Down (Friends and Relatives) is sometimes hectic, sometimes slow and considered, but even the most spacious passages consist largely of tense, frenetic gestures. Drummer Marc Riordan scrabbles and scrapes at his kit, creating a blur of cymbal patter, stuttering beats, and texture-based racket. Giallorenzo and electronicist Brian Labycz create swells and bursts of processed tones—snaking, skittering lines, supernovas of white noise, bulbous bloops and high-frequency bleeps—that not only blend and contrast thoughtfully with each other but also dance atop Riordan’s playing with clear logic and easy grace. A trio of Jim Dorling, Emmett Kelly, and Michael Zerang headlines; Breakway and Splitter open. 9 PM, Enemy, 1550 N. Milwaukee, third floor, 312-493-3657 or enemysound.com, donation requested. —Peter Margasak
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MARDUK This foul Swedish black-metal four-piece—and I mean “foul” in the best way—set out to be the most brutal and blasphemous band ever, and though it’s awfully hard to keep score, there’s no way they’re not in the running. The 1995 CD reissue of their 1991 debut, a demo called Fuck Me Jesus, depicts on its cover a nude young lady having a go at herself with a crucifix, and it’s been mostly downhill from there. Marduk took a shot at christening their own genre by naming a song “Christraping Black Metal” on the 1999 album Panzer Division Marduk, one of several releases to fortify their anti-Christian sentiment with Nazi themes and imagery. This tactic was probably intended to offend, well, everybody, and it even drew the ire of actual neo-Nazi black-metal acts, who called the band poseurs. Good for Marduk, I guess—if neo-Nazis are happy with what you’re doing, it’s probably time to reevaluate your direction. Only guitarist Morgan Steinmeyer Hakansson remains from the founding lineup, though bassist Magnus “Devo” Andersson was around for a while in the early 90s. Vocalist Daniel “Mortuus” Rosten came aboard in ’04, and the impressive new Wormwood (Regain) is his third full-length with the band; his growling, shrieking, gargling, and howling gives the album much of its power. Marduk’s east-coast trip in August was their first visit to the States in eight years—visa problems forced them to miss the Blackenedfest tour in May—and Mortuus was so happy to be here that he drank a chalice of congealing cow’s blood onstage in New York. Nachtmystium, Mantic Ritual, and Merrimack open. 8 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 2105 S. State, 312-949-0121 or 866-468-3401, $18, $15 in advance, 17+. —Monica Kendrick
