SEVEN IN SEVEN
Welcome to Seven in Seven, where each week we typically take a look at shows coming to the region over the next week. And while venue doors are opening again, due to the current pandemic they aren’t quite there yet. That doesn’t mean the music stops, and new releases are coming out weekly from artists you know and love and some waiting to be discovered. Each week we’ll be looking at some of the best hitting shelves and streaming services and a can’t-miss show in the region.
Whether your musical tastes are rock and roll, jazz, heavy metal, R&B, singer-songwriter or indie, there’ll always be something to check out. Here’s what’s on the docket for the week of March 18:
Show of the week
1 Perfume Genius — Union Transfer — March 23
Perfume Genius, aka Mike Hadreas, is finally playing some of his first live shows since the release of his critically acclaimed LP “Set My Heart on Fire Immediately.” The album appeared on numerous end-of-year lists as one of the top efforts of 2020. It was produced by Grammy-winning producer Blake Mills and features contributions from musicians Jim Keltner, Pino Palladino, Matt Chamberlin and Rob Moose, and explores and subverts concepts of masculinity and traditional roles and introduces decidedly American musical influences. Now it’s finally getting the live showcase it so richly deserves.
New releases
2
Son House — “Forever on My Mind”
“Forever on My Mind” is an album of previously unreleased Son House recordings from Easy Eye Sound, the independent label operated by Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys, and is the premiere release from ’60s recordings by some of the titans of Delta blues. It’s the earliest issued full-length House solo performance recorded after his rediscovery in 1964, at an appearance on Nov. 23 that year at Wabash College, a small men’s school in Crawfordsville, Ind. In terms of power and intensity, it rivals, and in some cases surpasses, the subsequent Columbia album “Father of the Folk Blues,” cut five months later in a New York City studio.
It also reflects a sharp musical focus that diminished in House’s later concert appearances and recordings.
3 Stabbing Westward — “Chasing Ghosts”
It’s been over two decades since the last full-length Stabbing Westward album came out, and the wait is finally over with “Chasing Ghosts,” featuring 10tracks that have the industrial rock band’s characteristic sound with a modern sheen that picks up right where they left off. Blending the scathing electronics of underground industrial rock with the emotive melodies of goth and decidedly radio-friendly sensibilities, Stabbing Westward rose up in the mid-’90s alternative boom thanks to such songs as “Shame,” “Save Yourself,” “So Far Away” and “What Do I Have To Do?” To this day, these songs remain anthems of heartache, dejection, rage, betrayal and depression.
4 Sonic Youth — “In/ Out/In”
Mulling over the career of Sonic Youth, it’s staggering to realize the legendary indie rockers not only delivered a healthy slab of releases as a unit but also have a myriad of shelved material still waiting for broader ears. While the group’s current Bandcamp page lays out a generous amount of it, a bunch more has yet to surface. And it’s a massive mountain to chip away at in the sense of the group output alone, but “In/ Out/In” ably delivers a bit of mostly-unheard Sonic righteousness, with a scope on the post 2000-era band, especially in the more experimental regions.
5 Midlake — “For the Sake of Bethel Woods”
A powerful, warming expression of resolve and renewal, “For the Sake of Bethel Woods” opens new futures for Midlake while still honoring their now storied history. Formed in the small town of Denton, Texas, the folk-rock band delivered an auspicious debut with 2004’s “Bamnan and Slivercork,” followed two years later by 2006’s wondrous and much beloved “The Trials of Van Occupanther,” both now rightfully hailed as modern classics. Bolstered by a growing fanbase and a developed sense of their own far-reaching abilities, Midlake evinced a characteristic embrace of change by visiting darker psych-folk terrain on 2010’s “The Courage of Others” while fully coming into their own, an aspect that continues on with the latest effort.
6 Aeviterne — “The Ailing Facade”
New York-based experimental death metal quartet Aeviterne are determined to make a mark on the genre, and succeed wonderfully on their debut album, “The Ailing Facade.” Throughout the LP, the band looks beyond the destruction of flesh or the punishment of the spirit, instead turning inward to focus on the abyss of consciousness itself, the curse of sentience, the futility of productivity, the breakdown of harmonious reality and humanity’s twin drives to propagate and destroy itself, locked in permanent perverse competition. The result is an album that plunges listeners into hellish headspaces of dread, anxiety and unease through dynamic songwriting and deliberate, nearly narrative sequencing rather than effects pedal abuse, made even queasier and more disorienting through subtle electronics and additional layers of percussion.
7 SheWolf — “SheWolf”
SheWolf is a new band built around the unique, powerful and versatile voice of the Greek singer Angel Wolf-Black. Combining a mixture of symphonic elements, folk vibes and heavy/power metal riffing, the music stands out for its superb personality and bombastic impact. The self-titled debut album is set to be one of the most interesting releases in the growing pool of bands who are fearlessly blending various genres under the metal umbrella. Supported by her unknown wolves, the Hunter on guitars, the Predator on bass and the Alpha on drums, Wolf-Black summons the forces of nature to roam every known land and bring the music of SheWolf to the world.