Concert Previews

In their showcase set at Antone's at the South by Southwest Music Festival in Austin, Texas, last week, Sallie Ford & The Sound Outside rumbled like Link Wray while their fishnet-stocking-wearing bespectacled leader declared herself an "Untamed Beast," in the title song to their new album. The Portland, Ore., quartet sport a vintage 1950s look that threatens to pigeonhole them as mere genre revivalist. The same fate threatens other early-rock fetishizing acts like JD McPherson, as well as the untold numbers of suit-and-tie-wearing retro-soul acts roaming stages across the land. At her best, though, in songs like "Bad Boys" and "Rockability," Ford, who can sound a bit like Yeah Yeah Yeahs' Karen O with a more trad rock-and-roll band behind her, is too fiercely demanding and urgently insistent on expressing her artistic imperatives and sexual prerogatives to be limited to any nostalgic niche. On Saturday, she shares a strong double bill with San Francisco folk-rock songwriter Thao Nguyen and her excellently named band, The Get Down Stay Down.

- Dan DeLuca

This night finds Johnny Brenda's playing host to nu-electro-pop and progressive R&B's most innovative voices. Sky Ferreira may come across like a willowy model, which she is, yet the lanky lass doubles as a boldly vocal electro chanteuse with a hint of vigorously arid soul to guide her. While her '80s-inspired Ghost EP made waves last year with its single "Everything Is Embarrassing" on the lips of every hipster, Sky's full-length (tentatively titled I'm Not Alright) promises to harken back to Blondie's CBGB-era best. Then there's How to Dress Well, the musical alias of producer/singer Tom Krell. Well is a Brooklyn-to-Berlin transplant, and Krell's robo-collage brand of modern avant-garde soul reflects his travels. Icy beats, lush arrangements, gorgeously funky melodies, and a warm falsetto are but a few of the hallmarks of How to Dress Well's albums, Love Remains and its most recent, Total Loss.

- A.D. Amorosi

With six years between their first and second albums and 20 between their fourth and fifth, the Feelies aren't ones to rush out new product. They also aren't ones to do much extended touring, so it's a treat to have the North Jersey veterans return to Union Transfer on Friday for a two-set evening. With Glenn Mercer and Bill Million's precise, interlocking guitars shifting from rhythmic strumming to arcing, feedback-laced solos, the Feelies built on the Velvet Underground's template without being bound by it. Their frenetic debut, 1980's Crazy Rhythms, and its more ruminative follow-up, the Peter Buck-produced The Good Earth of 1986, established their legacy and influence; 2011's Here Before was a worthy resurrection. Live, the quintet is impressively locked in, each detail coordinated with precision, and they have a penchant for classic covers of Jonathan Richman, Patti Smith, or the Beatles.

   - Steve Klinge