Celebrating the release of the new full-length album “Don’t Scare the Horses,” Chicago’s all-female indie-rock foursome Coupleskate serves a fine cocktail of intricately assembled pop, a pleasing attack of distorted guitars, meaty vocal harmonies and emotive crescendos. The record’s mid-nineties throwback parts prove powerful, and not only in a nostalgic way—songs like “The Fringe” and “Friends in Pharmacies” recall the better work of Veruca Salt, but luckily not all glossed-out. The title track might be the album’s best, a carefully constructed semi-ballad that boasts a Sleater-Kinney-like single-string-riffed verse and an unexpected, angelically reverb-laden chorus that digs deep inside your bones. The weaving double-guitar attack, often used to drive a song home, impresses even more with each successive attempt, and the sparsely used string arrangements—surprisingly for this sort of affair—are never over the top. And, of course, the indie-rock “ballads,” the slower, clean-guitar-driven gems that always pop up on graceful records like this, will find that special place in your silly sentimental heart. (“Foreign Exchange,” I’m thinking of you fondly.) “Don’t Scare the Horses,” a smart, often very pretty collection, was made with loving hands. (Tom Lynch)
February 13 at Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western, (773)276-3600
Whisperin' for Some Reason: A Preview of Ian Sweet at Empty Bottle Angeleno Jilian Medford produces a lo-fi indie-rock sound that could acutely score a mid-2000s Michael Cera film but still feels postmodern. Melancholic but defiant, her lyricism coupled with simple and elegant guitar progressions provides for the addicting kind of pop to sway awkwardly to.
Brutal Finesse: A Preview of King Crimson at Ravinia There have been few new compositions from King Crimson these past two decades, but the live arrangements of songs from its catalog are often strikingly different than the recorded versions.
