friday15
PANTHERS One of these days Brooklyn’s cage-pacing Panthers (former members of the screamo band Orchid plus Turing Machine guitarist Justin Chearno) will have to decide if they want to be a neo-prog outfit with some stoner gravity, a tentacle of the brainy-metal octopus, or a Fugazi-damaged riff machine–sometimes I think they’d be happiest if they managed to write a “Black to Comm” or a “Sister Ray” and just jam out on that free-form for years. (It would please me too.) But on their third full-length, The Trick (Vice), their first release since 2004, that sort of freak-magic alchemy still eludes them. But live their sweaty exertions are always entertaining enough in their own right. Raise the Red Lantern opens and Big Business headlines. a 10 PM, Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western, 773-276-3600 or 866-468-3401, $10, $8 in advance. –Monica Kendrick
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saturday16
sunday17
c FEIST The first few times I listened to The Reminder (Cherrytree/Interscope) I couldn’t get over how a record widely heralded as a commercial breakthrough could sound so subtle. The production is lean and unfussy, and there’s a preponderance of relatively introspective ballads, which seemed strange in light of “Mushaboom,” the giddy confection that was Feist’s closest thing to a hit. With time I’ve come to appreciate the singer’s new confidence in her songwriting–half of 2004’s Let It Die was covers but here she had a hand in all but one track (“Sealion,” a gospel-tinged take on the traditional “Sea Lion Woman”)-. Her melodies are strong, and she inhabits them in a gentle but commanding way. I’ve also grown to love the dynamic arrangements and the spacious-sounding way they were recorded, with the band playing all together in a single room sans headphones on most of the tracks. If Feist becomes a big star, I hope she keeps making the kind of original, personal music she’s made here. Grizzly Bear opens. a 7:30 PM, the Vic, 3145 N. Sheffield, 773-472-0449 or 312-559-1212, sold out. A –Peter Margasak
cjuilliard string quartet See Tuesday. a 8 PM, Martin Theatre, Ravinia Festival, Green Bay & Lake Cook Rds., Highland Park, 847-266-5100, $10-$40.
