Yr. Weekend, Pt. 1: Omotai + Ghost Town Electric + Searching for Signal + Featherface + The Manichean + More

Later than I’d hoped to do this, but we’ve got company in town, so my evenings have largely been shot playing cards & just hanging out ’til the wee hours; I figure it’d be crappy to pull out the laptop & frantically blog away while chatting, y’know?

But anyway, I didn’t want to let this weekend slip past un-commented-on, because it’s looking pretty good. Here’s what I happen to think sounds cool for tonight, Friday, January 7th:

Omotai/Ghost Town Electric/Big Fiction/Canyons @ Rudyard’s (10PM; $6)
Holy hell yeah, folks. The headliners for this show are two of my current absolute-favorite heavy-ass bands currently going right now, in this town or anywhere, and having ’em both on the same small-ish stage at Rudz seems likely to make the world drop face-first into a black hole or something.

Seriously, end-of-the-night trio {Omotai} make some of the most awesome, heavy, prog-ish metal you’re likely to hear, even in these heady days of metal in general — their EP, Peace Through Fear, came in last spring and pretty much knocked me flat on my face, which is no mean feat given all the great music H-town’s been producing lately. This little trio happens to be three of the best damn musicians in town right now, I swear. Read the full review I wrote up back then, or hell, listen to it for yourself over here.

(Oh, and they sent me a little taste of what’s coming next for the band, which I’ll hopefully get my shit together & talk about a little more later on; suffice it to say that it’s good…)

Then there’s {Ghost Town Electric}, whose split-7″ with {Defending the Kingdom} bowled me over near-equally; these guys and Omotai share a love of heavy, low-end-crushing music, but the GTE gang veer more towards the stoner-rock end of the spectrum, coming off kinda like Monster Magnet if that band didn’t, um, suck. Check out the review for that little slab of vinyl over here.

Of course, the show being at Rudz, it’ll start late (10PM), which means you’ll have time to hit other places beforehand, like, say…

Searching for Signal/Featherface/Rivers/Papaya @ Fitzgerald’s
Okay, so this is about as far as you can get from the above heaviness without being on a different planet with lighter gravity or something. But believe it or not, it’s an equally cool show, featuring four of the coolest up-and-comers I’ve seen lately.

I’ve liked {Searching for Signal} for quite a while now, admiring their growth from the band’s first EP, where they were more of a jangly, indie-pop band, to 2009’s It’s So Bright, which saw the band heading in more of an atmospheric, calm-after-the-storm, gorgeous and sweeping post-rock direction. Which, yes, is pretty dang good.

Then there’s {Featherface}, whose recent EP, It Comes Electric, gouged its way into my ear this year and refused to leave. They’re hard to define, jumping from sound to sound but somehow managing to make all the pieces fit, and fit beautifully. And show-openers {Rivers} & {Papaya} have both gotten tons of praise lately from folks I like, so they’re well worth checking out, too.

Vincent Priceless/The Manichean/Jody Seabody & the Whirls @ Fitzgerald’s
You may’ve missed it, but local über-drama-rockers {The Manichean} released a brand-new remix EP, Lacerus Rising, a couple of weeks back (review here; listen here), and one of the most prominent figures on the EP was the totally un-Googleable Vincent Priceless (what, not even a Myspace page?), whom I like to think the cover for the EP was based upon (hey, the name just seems to fit the Nathaniel Hawthorne-looking character on there). The guy contributed three different versions of the Manichean’s “Lacerus,” each one its own unique beast with its own cool vibe; I’m extremely curious to see/hear what he does solo.

And of course, this show features the Manichean crew, too, however many there are of ’em these days — they’re really, truly a sight to behold, something like a bizarro indie-rock musical run amok (and often, right off the stage). Not sure how they’ll work at Fitz, since every time I’ve seen them they’ve been up-close-and-personal in the crowd, with frontman Cory Sinclair roaming all over the place while Justice Tirapelli-Jamail & the rest of the band rock out nearer to the stage, but it’s bound to be good.

Last but not least, {Jody Seabody and The Whirls} have been impressing me more & more each time I’ve heard ’em. They’re a bit different from the other folks on the bill — definitely louder, that’s for sure, and less dramatic — but still recommended.

Runner-Up:
Krullur/The Delta Block/Cerebral Rot/TeXXXas @ The Mink