Live Music Highlights – April 2011

Attention youths! Emotional guitar rock this way comes courtesy of Aberdeen (via Brighton) three-piece The X-certs. A solid rhythm section, battle-tested alt-rock chord changes and anthemic choruses dictate that any floppy-haired young colts who’ve yet to make the inevitable transition from rebellious angst to trenchant despair should get down to Dundee Doghouse on 5 Apr, Aberdeen Cafe Drummonds on 6 Apr, Stirling Fubar on 7 Apr or Edinburgh Studio 24 on 8 Apr. Enjoy it while you can – we’ll be at home trying to work out whether or not the new Radiohead album is shit.

Having graduated from Biffy Poly with a 2:1 in applied riffage, Ayrshire trio Sucioperro are now carving out a decent career thanks to their dependably forceful live shows – even if their compositions have a frustrating habit of drifting into prosaic indie terrain on occasion. Check them at Aberdeen Tunnels on 5 Apr, Dundee Beat Generator on 6 Apr, Glasgow Arches on 7 Apr and Edinburgh Sneaky Pete’s on 8 Apr.

Aggressively odd high-energy/low-fidelity three-piece Trash Kit make the trek up from darn sarf to play Glasgow’s 13th Note on 9 Apr. A penchant for explosive, arrhythmic songs, facepaint and chanting lends these girls a charming fresh-from-the-asylum frisson that will delight the open-minded listener.

Swedish veterans Jeniferever land at Glasgow Captain’s Rest on 13 Apr to promote their new album, Silesia. Equally adept at deploying both elegant indie rock and atmospheric slow-burners, they’re old hands at weaving a weighty, contemplative sound that works surprisingly well in the live setting.

Lone Pigeon (aka Fence Collective stalwart Gordon Anderson) marks the release of his lush 7-CD boxset, Time Capsule, with a pair of gigs at Edinburgh Pilrig St. Paul’s Church on 14 Apr and Aberdeen’s Blue Lamp on 15 Apr. Expect gently psychedelic folk and buckets of quirkiness from this lad. Support from Pictish Trail.

Glasgow Garage on 17 Apr will be the scene of some uncompromising sensory stimulation as ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead lead a charge against your central nervous system with assistance from post-hardcore favourites Rival Schools. Both packing alternately expansive and punchy new records, we confidently predict a dizzying maelstrom of freaky moves and heavy grooves.

Formed in the shadowy subconscious of Glasgow’s Injuns, The Dead Man's Waltz will temporarily materialise for an evening of tall tales, musical improvisation and much more at Glasgow Bar Bloc on 21 Apr. Support comes from Adopted as Holograph (Sluts of Trust’s John McFarlane). Recommended.

Featuring two thirds of the now defunct Saint Jude’s Infirmary, Edinburgh School For The Deaf will play Edinburgh Wee Red Bar on 23 Apr. Oscillating between spectral ballads and ballsy rock action, their sound is informed by a noisy-yet-fragle, fuzzed-out shoegaze aesthetic. Support from Black Heart Generator and Verse Metrics.

Fresh from interacting with the police by the medium of guitar in the middle of an Austin street, The Skinny’s favourite motherfuckers Bronto Skylift bring it back indoors to Glasgow King Tut's on 23 Apr. With an innate understanding of what it takes to put on an engaging show (protip: attacking your drum kit like a schizophrenic gorilla trying to beat out an imaginary fire REALLY helps), their set will put hairs on your chest. Co-headline duties come from fellow Weegies St. Deluxe who revive the spirit of US slacker alt-pop then immediately drown the bugger in syrupy scum-gaze textures. Should be a righteous night.

Super-versatile art-pop heroes Metronomy hit up Edinburgh Cabaret Voltaire on 25 Apr and Aberdeen Tunnels on 26 Apr. Stitching together ass-shaking electronic rhythms, weird post-punk angles and soulful pop hooks is no mean feat, but these cats make it look easy. Totally essential vibes.

As longtime fans of Pocahaunted, the meteoric rise of Bethany Cosentino’s Best Coast is not something we anticipated – even in our wildest psilocybin-fuelled reveries. Having reinvented her image and sandpapered the jagged edges from her bitter-sweet surf-pop songs, punters at Glasgow Arches on 27 Apr can decide for themselves whether or not she’s taken one step too many towards the mainstream.

Drone-lords Barn Owl (not to be confused with the Scottish indie outfit of the same name) play Glasgow Captain’s Rest on 30 Apr. Having moved from a heavily Earth-centric orbit (the band, not the planet) to more abstract, isolated realms of late, their current sound somehow manages to be both heavy and ambient at the same time. Support comes from the brilliant Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, whose album Love is a Stream was arguably the best noise record of 2010.