Welcome to “Seven in Seven,” where each Friday we take a look at shows coming to the region over the next week. Whether your musical tastes are rock and roll, jazz, heavy metal, singer-songwriter or indie, there’ll always be something to check out in the coming days.
Here are seven of the best for the week beginning Nov. 26:
Within the Ruins – Nov. 26 at Voltage Lounge
Within The Ruins wasted no time in crafting a new career-defining landmark, Phenomena. The band’s new album, Halfway Human, is the next step forward, further jettisoning all but the best components of the oft-maligned “deathcore” genre to reveal a band whose all-out assault of heaviness won’t be confined by genre. From here on out, it’s all hands on deck.
Cut/Copy – Nov. 28 at Union Transfer
In the past decade, Cut/Copy has truly become an international act. Touring across the world, headlining massive sold-out shows, and slated on prime slots of prestigious festivals worldwide like Coachella, Ultra Music Festival, and Lollapalooza in the US; Europe’s Pitchfork Paris; Japan’s Summer Sonic; Australia’s Big Day Out. They’ve released four critically praised albums and accumulated a few hundred – and counting – tour dates in the process, the majority of which to sold out audiences. It’s alt-rock, synth-pop and it’s pretty darn good.
St. Vincent – Nov. 28 at The Electric Factory
Masseduction, the latest album from St. Vincent, came out last month. Without a doubt, it’s a bold, emotional, reckoning largely themed around power. It comes at a pivotal point in the given name of Annie Clark’s life. Her last album, St. Vincent, won her breakout acclaim plus a performance on the season finale of SNL, and with a reconstituted Nirvana when the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She did something very few could even attempt; the singer/songwriter is a rarity these days – someone with staying power.
Liam Gallagher – Nov. 30 at Union Transfer
To be completely honest – and realistic – Noel Gallagher was the brains and melody behind Oasis. The frontman though, his brother Liam, was the driving force. Still one of the most enigmatic frontmen in music, the young brother of Noel had put out his first solo album, and it is excellent. Expect to hear tracks from that effort, ‘As You Were,’ and a bevy of Britpop familiar hits.
Cannibal Corpse – Nov. 30 at World Cafe Live Upstairs
Formed in 1988, Buffalo born/Tampa, Florida raised Cannibal Corpse helped found, manipulate and transcend the very boundaries of death metal beginning with the scandalously controversial debut, Eaten Back to Life. Raising the eyebrows of inquisitive metal heads and incensed parents and politicians, the record – produced by Scott Burns at the now renowned Morrisound Studios – was more extreme and confrontational than anything the metal genre had ever known. Today, they are still pushing those boundaries.
I Love the 90s – Dec. 2 at Sands Bethlehem Event Center
Looking for nostalgia these days isn’t that hard – ’90s nostalgia especially. Dial up Vanilla Ice, Young M.C., All 4 One and Salt-N-Pepa? Then it’s a party. This lineup of old school will crack even the most hardened soul who doesn’t want to shimmy to “It Takes Two.”
Beach Slang – Dec. 2 at The Theatre of Living Arts
Beach Slang are a band who have garnered a lot of attention after they released two 7-inches, 2014’s “Cheap Thrills On A Dead End Street” and its companion “Who Would Ever Want Something So Broken?” Refreshingly, and proud to be our locals, the Philly-based act have built their hype the old-fashioned way, without any gimmicks or marketing teams, which makes sense when you consider that frontman and writer James Alex cut his teeth in the Pennsylvania pop-punk act Weston. Short version: they don’t mess around.
