Friday17
Ryan Cohan QuintetHappy BirthdayKatatoniaGreg Ward’s Fitted Shards
Saturday18
Charlatans UK PostponedRyan Cohan QuintetJustin Townes EarleMale BondingRavenPeter StampfelSuper Wild Horses
Sunday19
Chicago Symphony OrchestraRyan Cohan QuartetSuper Wild Horses
Monday20
Heavy Times
Tuesday21
Suuns
Wednesday22
Dead Confederate
HAPPY BIRTHDAY King Tuff formed this band because he was too shy to sing his songs of romantic awkwardness alone. He does so in a soaring sort of squawk, as adolescent as his subject matter on Happy Birthday‘s self-titled Sub Pop debut. But he’s well paired with stickswoman Ruth Garbus, who has a big, womanly voice—like her sister Merrill Garbus of Tune-Yards—that counteracts Mr. Tuff’s woebegotten warble. They sound something like Dinosaur Jr would have if Lou Barlow had kicked J Mascis out, rather than the other way around—fuzzed-out bubble-pop. The music will feel familiar to anyone who heard the popular indie-rock bands of the early 90s, though the trio have close contemporaries in the prettified garage-band sound of Girls. They’re a fine and happy sort of band, Happy Birthday. Dirty Projectors headline. 9 PM, Metro, 3730 N. Clark, 773-549-0203, $21, 18+. —Jessica Hopper
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
KATATONIA These dour Swedes, from a land of long winter nights and cradle-to-grave health care, play a romantic flavor of gothic metal in the tradition of their English contemporaries My Dying Bride, though they call it simply “dark rock.” (Vocalist Jonas Renkse and guitarist Anders Nystrom work out their more visceral impulses in the death-metal band Bloodbath, where Renkse plays bass and fellow Swede Mikael Akerfeldt of Opeth sings.) Katatonia’s eighth full-length, Night Is the New Day (Peaceville), released last fall, begins with the wall-slamming “Forsaker” and quickly opens up into painterly layers of instrumentation, adding keyboards, strings, and more to create a surprisingly deep and nuanced web of textures. Renkse’s clean, resonant vocals sound like something you might hear in a cold and cavernous stone cathedral somewhere in the forsaken far north, and they serve to anchor the listener in the proper state of melancholy—some of the acoustic interludes and delicate synths raise the possibility that a sunbeam might leak into the gloom, and we can’t have that! Swallow the Sun, Orphaned Land, Novembers Doom, and Clad in Darkness open. 7 PM, Reggie’s Rock Club, 2109 S. State, 312-949-0121 or 866-468-3401, $20. —Monica Kendrick
RAVEN You might remember this British trio as hair-metal second-stringers from the late 80s, but they actually came together in 1974. They’re at their best playing the kind of fierce hard rock that marks them out as contemporaries of Judas Priest—their proto-thrash attack is good enough to make me forgive those schlocky 80s records and the rather dumb gimmick they once used of playing in athletic gear. Cursed with a Spinal Tap-like career trajectory, Raven almost dropped the thread altogether back in 2001, when guitarist Mark Gallagher nearly lost his legs after a wall collapsed on him. The band went on hiatus while Gallagher rehabbed, eventually regrouping to record last year’s Walk Through Fire (Metal Blade), a hard-earned and intense return to form. Earthen Grave, Bible of the Devil, Stone Magnum, and Diamond Plate open. 8:30 PM, Abbey Pub, 3420 W. Grace, 773-463-5808 or 866-468-3401, $18, $15 in advance. —Monica Kendrick
