The Thermals return to Austin Saturday night for what promises to be a lively showcase with supporting acts Cymbals Eat Guitars and The Coathangers. Siting their influences as grunge pioneers and indie-rockers Mudhoney, Nirvana, and Bikini Kill, The Thermals have developed and maintain a confrontational lyrical focus born from their passion for politics, whether they be personal or universal. more ›

What’s the Deal: It’s such a perfect name for this New York foursome. It implies the group may sport a sort of eccentric experimentalism in their music, which they do, as well as a tendency to burst into frenzy and ferocity, which they also do at moments both expected and not throughout select tracks. The group is still relatively young, with at least two of the members having graduated from High School in 2006, but musically they are much more advanced and mature than many who have been filling our airwaves with recycled simplicity for 10 years. You could say they lucked out with the buzz status and favorable reviews they earned in 2009 with Why There Are Mountains (like an 8.3 and an endorsement as “Best New Music “ on Pitchfork), but it wasn’t luck at all. more ›

The Mohawk offers up a hell of a future-look tonight, as even if the bands on this docket aren't familiar to you yet, give it time: they will be. With a trifold bill featuring not one, but two bands whose debut albums garnered the much sought-after Best New Music designation from the loved or loathed pillar of tastemaking, Pitchfork Media, this is one of those lovely opportunities to go to a show and later brag about it to all the fools who were a step behind. For example, if you saw MGMT at Fun Fun Fun Fest two years ago, when there were about one hundred people in the daytime audience. Surely, a bunch of those people have had ample opportunity for smugness since then, yes? Well, this time, it's The Pains of Being Pure at Heart and Cymbals Eat Guitars with the sky-high post-Vivian Girls raw-sound superpotential, with the promising 8-bit plus band The Depreciation Guild as an added bonus. more ›