Concert Previews

When Teenage Fanclub of Glasgow, Scotland, began performing in the early 1990s, their jangly, lo-fi, melodic tunes earned them constant comparisons to bands like the Byrds and Big Star. Twenty years later, Teenage Fanclub's staid commitment to power-pop, and their almost naive, old-fashioned sensibility, have earned them the role of torchbearers to whom rising bands are now compared. While no longer earning album-of-the-year accolades, as they did from many critics for their 1991 album

Bandwagonesque

, Teenage Fanclub has found itself adored and appreciated by a devout and expanding group of followers. With the recent release of their 10th album,

Shadows

, the group finds itself just where they left off on 2005's

Man-Made

: bright power-pop dotted with elements of maturity, tenderness, and irony.

- Katherine Silkaitis

Sexy

,

cool

, and

shadowy

are three words that might describe an actress like Paz de la Huerta or a film like

Casino Royale

, not an aloof British band such as the xx. But here we are with London boys making slow, chilled tunes rife with carnal knowledge on last year's dreamy debut,

XX

. With its spacey mix of rippling indie-pop and dubstep with scattered rhythms below the icy surface, sensual singers Romy Madley Croft and Oliver Sim subtly add an X rating to the xx. The xx isn't the only cold, dark wind blowing through the Merriam on Monday. From the spooky harmony-filled demeanor of their debut EP

Exquisite Corpse

, the girls of Warpaint sound as if they learned some scary tricks from the Cure. Best of all - at least as magnificent as the xx - there's Zola Jesus. Known to her mom as young Nika Roza Danilova, Zola writes prose (nearly) as elliptical and emotional as Patti Smith's and sings in an operatic Siouxsie-meets-Diamanda Galás caterwaul her gothic hymnals of love and death on several EPs (

Stridulum

,

Valusia

) released throughout 2010. The new ice age starts here.

- A.D. Amorosi

Back in August, when Gang, the Philadelphia dance-party band fronted by Amanda Damron and Jaclyn McGraw, played a free show in Rittenhouse Square, the foursome drove the assembled throng into a delirium with a cover of "Dance This Mess Around," the 1979 hit by Athens, Ga., dance-party band the B-52s. Appropriately enough. The robotic funk-flavored influence of the Fred Schneider-fronted New Wave-era band can be felt in both Gang originals like "Rat Poison" and "Why Can't You Just Be" and clever covers such as their take on Rage Against the Machine's "Killing in the Name Of." Also appropriate because Gang will open for the B-52s at the Electric Factory Friday.

- Dan DeLuca