The Lacking Permanence

You know I have a weakness for pitch-perfect harmonies and razor-sharp hooks, and The Rare Occasions deliver both in voluminous quantities. Also noteworthy tonight is back to back tracks from The Who Sell Out, only one of which is performed by The Who!

I DON’T REALLY UNDERSTAND WHY BANDS MAKE ALLCAPS PART OF THEIR BRANDING AND MOSTLY FIND IT ANNOYING, BUT I CAN MAKE AN EXCEPTION FOR THIS PHILADELPHIA OUTFIT AND THIS ALBUM THAT SOUNDS LIKE A DREAM RADIO WITH A FAULTY FREQUENCY LOCK.

The band is back after an extended hiatus, picking up where they left off, with low-key catchy tunes making up an album that slowly develops into an outstanding collection of propulsive melodies and infectious hooks.

An all-too-short collaborative effort between Camilo Lara, the mind behind MIS, and a witches’ brew of guest appearances making for a selection of space-age cumbias and other sounds as brazenly colorful and exuberant as the city it’s named for.

Kid Congo Powers has a musical resume you wouldn’t believe, and this particular outing for his talents is garage psychobilly supreme, a wonderfully uncouth expression of much-needed sophisticated boom boom.

Revisiting songs from their debut 2011 EP and various favorites from a ten-year career, this sunny folk-pop ensemble is buoyed by brightly colored harmony balloons dangling deathly sharp unexpected hooks. Listen with care and often.

Scruffy and rough around the edges, South London’s shame will not back down or pull a punch, but will put their arm on your shoulder and make you sing along

This extensive 100-song collection highlights a song from each year of the last century and delivers it with a bluegrass tinge and Stampfel’s distinctive yawping … it’s not pleasing to everyone, but it’s hard to argue with the encyclopedic choices.

There are voices so distinctive that their timbre is an instrument onto itself. This is the case with Josh Caterer, who was first heard singing for a band called The Smoking Popes. He has a wildly diverse solo career now, but tonight we play his reworked version of a Popes song.