Baumer — Little known fact: Pop music doesn’t have to be boring. It’s actually a whole lot better for everyone if we let things like honesty and dynamic creep into the pop-rock formula. It seems to be working for Baumer: The Capital City quartet makes its pop music captivating by injecting it with urgency in the form of abrupt shifts and drastic crescendos and the earnestness of Nate Boykin’s dramatic vocals. An explosive chorus helmed by hard-nosed guitars and Boykin’s agile falsetto makes “In Your Stead,” from this year’s Were It Not For You, feel epic despite its modest four-and-a-quarter minute duration. B. Reed
New Brookland Tavern: 7 p.m., $10; 791-4413,
newbrooklandtavern.com.
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| Secret Lives of the Freemasons |
Secret Lives of the Freemasons — A quote-unquote post-hardcore band signed to Victory Records with a five-word name complete with vestigial exclamation point? Color me … hesitant. Let’s be honest here: This whole emo/pop-hardcore thing is played out, and it takes a special kind of band to make it tolerable, much less enjoyable, anymore. But Asheville quintet Secret Lives of the Freemasons might just be onto something: By using the early-to-mid-aughts’ definition of emo — with all its nasal inflections and not-so-secret adulation of ‘80s hair metal — and scrapping the melodrama to focus instead on happy-go-lucky hooks and totally hot licks, Secret Lives might just cheer up those emo kids. B. Reed
New Brookland Tavern: 7 p.m., $10; 791-4413,
newbrooklandtavern.com.
The Never — With the departure of Ari Picker, one of The Never’s principal songwriters, to focus on his Lost in the Trees project, the band’s live sets have returned to a steady diet of lovelorn, kindhearted rock songs buoyed by Beach Boys harmonies and effervescent melodies, more akin to the sound of The Never’s eponymous album from 2004 than to 2006’s storybook record Antarctica, which found the band diving into symphonic arrangements, programmed beats and a hint of bluegrass. Fortunately for us, both iterations of the band deliver the goods when it comes to the charm and sweetness that made the band enticing from day one. B. Reed
New Brookland Tavern: 9 p.m., $7; 791-4413,
newbrooklandtavern.com.
Free Times, 7/9/08
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