The Jesus Lizard, recently reunited after a decade-long hiatus, brought its pulverizing art blues to Fillmore New York at Irving Plaza last night. See above for photos from the gig by Laal Shams, and read on for a review by Hank Shteamer.

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Yep, you read that right. As reported by Pitchfork earlier today, the entire forthcoming album from rock & roll ultragroup Them Crooked Vultures—which you’ve likely heard about either on the Volume or in TONY—is now streaming on the band’s YouTube channel. We’ve yet to digest the full beast, but we’re definitely digging the lean, muscular and thoroughly infectious “Dead End Friends,” hearable above.

In TONY’s CMJ preview, I indicated that Wild Yaks operate in a realm far, far away from the indie-rock rat race. At last night’s CMJ showcase for the Brooklyn roots-punk band’s new label, Ernest Jenning—held at Knitting Factory Brooklyn—the Yaks proved once again that they couldn’t care less about coming off as professional. If the preceding act, the Black Hollies, offered a spot-on throwback to jangly ’60s Brit-rock, in which even the guitarist’s midsolo gyrations seemed choreographed, the Yaks’ set was a beautiful mess.

Click past the jump for a full review.

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Brooklyn labels the Social Registry and No Quarter may share an arty aesthetic, but their joint showcase at Knitting Factory Brooklyn still felt mighty schizophrenic. In other words, it was vintage CMJ. Check out pics above and click ahead for a review.

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To answer your first question: No, R. Kelly did not perform—or, for that matter even allude to—Trapped in the Closet, his rightly obsessed-over R&B opera, during his WaMu Theater at MSG concert last night. All the same, Kelly’s Ladies Make Some Noise! Tour, as the event was billed, offered a hell of a spectacle, complete with copious set changes, ADD-friendly medleys of the singer’s many hits (yes, including “Ignition (Remix),” but only about 90 seconds of it), meaningful nods to his R&B forebears, plenty of obligatory raunch, and believe it or not, a candid meditation on the star’s recent legal travails. The singer was abetted by a crack band, a few backup dancers and a hype man, but this was Kelly’s show all the way.

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Photos by Laal Shams

“You still with us?” asked Them Crooked Vultures frontman Josh Homme midway through the band’s impressive NYC debut at Roseland last night. “It’s a lot of new stuff.” He sounded genuinely concerned, as if he understood full well that he and his illustrious bandmates, bassist John Paul Jones and drummer Dave Grohl, were asking a lot of their audience. The three musicians each have a ton of history to trade on, but in their brief collective life span, the Vultures have forsaken nostalgia entirely. And so it was at Roseland, where the trio, along with partner-in-crime Alain Johannes, muscled through 90 minutes of yet-unreleased material. At times the songs blurred together, but overall the gig lived up to its supergroup billing.

Read on for a full review.

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Photos by Hank Shteamer.

Last night, soul-rock superstar Lenny Kravitz played the second gig of his five-night run at the Fillmore New York, which continues tomorrow (Wednesday, October 14). Check out pics from the show above, and click past the jump for a brief review.

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Photo: Hank Shteamer

Last night’s installment of the Blackened Music Series, held at Brooklyn Masonic Temple and headlined by the becowled dronesmiths of Sunn O))), was ostensibly a metal show. But as the night wore on, that label seemed increasingly irrelevant: The four bands on the bill—including Salt Lake City’s Eagle Twin (pictured)— all demonstrated how an oblique reference to a genre can sometimes be more potent than a straightforward rendering.

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It’s been a busy year for high-profile supergroups, with the debuts of Monsters of Folk, Them Crooked Vultures, Tinted Windows and a bunch more. Similar partnerships are blooming in the underground, and one that’s got us especially excited is Krallice, which teams avant-metal VIPs Colin Marston (Behold… the Arctopus, Dysrhythmia) and Mick Barr (Orthrelm, Ocrilim, Octis) with bassist Nick McMaster and drummer Lev Weinstein. The band isn’t quite new—it formed in ’07, and in ’08 it issued an excellent self-titled full-length that made my year-end top-ten list—but it’s all set to drop an awesomely titled sophomore LP on Profound Lore, Dimensional Bleedthrough (out November 10, cover art above). Here’s the 11-minute title track, a stunning example of the band’s epic, enlightened heaviness. As with past Krallice material, the feeling I get from this is a combination of sci-fi–tinged awe and overwhelming cathartic sadness.

It’s understandable that Backstreet Boys would be grasping at straws a bit as they prepare to drop their comeback effort, This Is Us, on October 6. But few could have predicted that they would jump on the Twilight-fueled sexy-vampire bandwagon with their new video, “Straight Through My Heart.” All ridiculousness aside, the track is a pretty catchy slab of boy-band-ified techno-pop goodness.

Since arriving here from Richmond in ’05, saxist Darius Jones has kept mighty busy, gigging with Mike Pride’s From Bacteria to Boys, Trevor Dunn’s Proof Readers and the noise-jazz quartet Little Women. And he’s not phoning it in, either: Each time we’ve seen Jones play, we’ve been seriously impressed with the sheer gut-level intensity he projects, whether he’s blasting out a furiously minimal riff or digging into a deep blues groove.

So it pleases us greatly to report that Jones has hooked up with Aum Fidelity, a local label that knows plenty about the horn man’s brand of gritty free jazz, for his debut as a leader, Man’ish Boy (A Raw & Beautiful Thing), due out October 13. The disc teams Jones with two heavyweight improv elders, drummer Rakalam Bob Moses (Charles Mingus, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Pat Metheny) and multi-instrumentalist Cooper-Moore. Check out a preview track below and hear the band live October 15 at Abrons Arts Center at an Aum-sponsored showcase that also features saxist David S. Ware and William Parker’s mammoth Little Huey Creative Music Orchestra. Advance tickets are available here.

Photographs by Hank Shteamer.

“Heaven, or hell?” said the ticket-taker at Madison Square Garden, making reference to a strange double-booking at the venue last night. By hell he meant Britney Spears, overseeing her hedonistic Circus in the main space. Heaven, meanwhile, referred to Heaven and Hell, better known as the post-Ozzy version of Black Sabbath, which appeared simultaneously at MSG’s adjacent WaMu Theater. For fans of old-school metal, the show was in fact akin to paradise: It offered the chance to witness a legendary band willfully sloughing off its icon status in favor of something riskier and more intimate.

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In case you haven’t noticed, we here at TONY are big Shilpa Ray fans. We first caught wind of her harmonium-abetted love/hate-song stylings back when she was a member of Beat the Devil. Since the dissolution of that band a few years back, Ray has forged ahead with a solo career, continuing in the same winningly sweet-bitter vein. Now, along with Her Happy Hookers, she’s preparing to drop A Fish Hook an Open Eye, her debut disc under her own name. Here’s a track from the record, which is out September 22. Click past the jump to watch Ray’s recent solo performance as part of the Volume’s Live at TONY series, and catch her live with the Hookers on September 10 at Knitting Factory’s new Williamsburg location.

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Lightning Bolt’s world-class drum spaz, Brian Chippendale, has been tearing it up lately with his solo project, Black Pus, so we figured it would be a good while before we’d be hearing from his main band again. We’re happy to report that we were dead wrong in that assumption: A new Lightning Bolt full-length, Earthly Delights, drops on October 13 via Load; check out the cover art above. Lead track “Colossus,” streaming below—with an assist from the good folks at Arthur—is one of the heaviest things we’ve heard from the band. While Chippendale and his cohort, bassist Brian Gibson, tend to favor breakneck tempos, here they settle into an almost Black Sabbath–ish stoner-metal chug. Fortunately, the whole thing is filtered through the duo’s trademark bone-rattling (yet spirit-affirming) fuzz. If you like what you hear, check out Lightning Bolt live at a location-TBA Todd P show on August 30.

We’re very sad to report that the great jazz drummer Rashied Ali passed away yesterday at the age of 74.

It’s common to refer to innovative artists as trailblazers, but few are more deserving of that description than Ali, born Robert Patterson. He will always be remembered as the drummer who helped John Coltrane push beyond conventional swing rhythm into a glorious kind of freedom. (He’s celebrated for the achievement now, but at the time, critics were none too pleased.) Ali anchored Coltrane’s last working band—with saxist Pharoah Sanders, pianist Alice Coltrane and bassist Jimmy Garrison—but the apex of the two musicians’ collaboration was the 1967 duet session Interstellar Space. It’s no exaggeration to call it one of the most viscerally gorgeous recordings of the 20th century.

Following Trane’s death that same year, Ali carried the late saxist’s torch for four ultraproductive decades. Beginning in the ’70s, he helmed the downtown performance space Ali’s Alley and Survival, a DIY record company. (See an earlier Volume post for a track from Swift Are the Winds of Life, a key Survival release that features Ali in duet with violinist Leroy Jenkins.) Ali’s recent work—with the likes of bassist Henry Grimes, saxist Charles Gayle and pianist Marilyn Crispell—was every bit as accomplished as his ’60s efforts. Over the years, he developed into a more supple and versatile player whose sophisticated sense of groove reconciled the ’60s avant-garde with the work of classic-bop practitioners such as Roy Haynes.

Below is a track from Interstellar Space. Visit Ali’s official site for a wealth of info and streaming audio clips. Also check out a comprehensive interview with Mr. Ali, which I conducted in 2003 for All About Jazz; a stunning vintage film clip of the drummer performing with trumpeter Don Cherry and guitarist James Blood Ulmer; and, via WBGO’s Josh Jackson, an hour-long 2004 live recording of Ali and saxist Sonny Fortune.

Farewell, Mr. Ali—we will miss you dearly.

The new Bloody Panda album, Summon—available now from Profound Lore—serves as a harrowing reminder that Halloween is just a few short months away. Lead single “Pusher,” streaming below, finds the local doom-metal outfit refining the sublimely nightmarish approach heard on 2007’s Pheromone. Guitarist Josh Rothenberger’s lurching riffage and vocalist Yoshiko Ohara’s tortured yowling guarantee chills, but what really has us freaked out is Blake McDowell’s eerie organ work, which gives the track a halo of gothic dissonance. Turn out the lights and burn some candles for this one.

Photos by Laal Shams and Hank Shteamer.

The recent Volume stars of Asphalt Orchestra, a new avant-garde marching band brought to you by the Bang on a Can crew, debuted Wednesday night in a brief but highly enjoyable mobile performance at Lincoln Center. Starting on Broadway at 66th Street, the group ascended Alice Tully Hall’s new public bleachers, crossed 65th Street and made its way up to tree-lined Hearst Plaza, before journeying to nearby Josie Robertson Plaza for the finale. Droves of spectators—including the three little girls pictured above—dutifully trailed the group as it performed various cutting-edge works.

The selections included Carlton, a festive intro piece by Stew and Heidi Rodewald (Passing Strange); “Electric Red,” an adaptation of a song by Swedish math-metal band Meshuggah, during which Asphalt Orchestra’s three percussionists offered a convincing rendition of Thomas Haake’s dauntingly complex beat; and Champagne, a raucous commission by Serbo-Croatian composer Goran Bregovic. Rounding out the program were works by Tyondai Braxton (Battles) and Charles Mingus. Asphalt Orchestra also performs tonight through Sunday (August 6–9) at various Lincoln Center locales. Go here for a detailed itinerary, and click past the jump for more photos from tonight’s performance.

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The big story this weekend is All Points West. For the second year in a row, the New York City area has a big festival to call its own, and the lineup has a little something for everyone. Yes, Jay-Z has replaced the Beastie Boys, and yes, Tool and Coldplay headline other nights. But, Friday through Sunday isn’t all about the name acts: Check out our preview of the shows here for some lesser-known highlights.

Other than APW, you’re still looking at a stacked weekend.

Friday
A trio of dark bands—Brutal Truth, Pig Destroyer and Repulsion—kick off Blackened Music Series at Brooklyn Masonic Temple. Read our show preview here.

The Mekons, punk’s great British-American collective, play the Bell House. (They also play Mercury Lounge Saturday.) Read our show preview here.

AC/DC rocks Giants Stadium with a little help from Anvil, stars of the recent documentary film Anvil! The Story of Anvil.

Weirdos from the ’90s indie scene Polvo play South Street Seaport, with support from also aging, also excellent Obits.

Saturday
Luna vets Dean & Britta soundtrack Andy Warhol’s “Screen Tests” at Celebrate Brooklyn at Prospect Park.

Wistful and scrappy are the name of the game for Cass McCombs’s show with Jennifer O’Connor at Union Hall.

The biggest name in the biz, Lil Wayne, busts rhymes at Nikon at Jones Beach Theater.

Indie hero M. Ward headlines a show at Central Park SummerStage, but we’re really intrigued by the pairing of former Minuteman Mike Watt and Wilco guitar shredder Nels Cline in the opening slot. Check back at the Volume (or see above) for a recent in-office performance from Watt.

Sunday
If you’re not heading out to APW, you’ll no doubt want to see three big indie acts—Dan Deacon, Deerhunter and No Age—swap songs in a round-robin-style shit show.

Later, the cocky Catfish Haven plays The Bell House for a nice end to your weekend.

Departing from an established band to go solo is a risky move, but Sarah Lipstate seems to have a solid backup plan. The local guitarist, who records as Noveller, recently split from the high-quality, long-running art-punk outfit Parts & Labor in order to focus on her dual careers as a sound artist and filmmaker. As you can hear on the preview track below, Lipstate’s latest, Red Rainbows (due September 1 on Carlos Giffoni’s No Fun Productions label), is an impressive outing, full of hovering drones that simultaneously assault and massage the eardrums. If you like what you hear, catch Lipstate at Williamsburg’s Bruar Falls on August 9 and then again at an official record-release party on August 28.

Having already appeared on one of ’09’s most satisfying indie-rock discs, Dinosaur Jr.’s killer Farm, Lou Barlow attempts to make it two in a row with his new solo effort, Goodnight Unknown, due out October 6 via Merge. Fans of Barlow’s defunct slacker-pop outfit the Folk Implosion—as well as the sprawling Sebadoh catalog—ought to dig the album’s first single, “Gravitate,” issued yesterday as a free download. As with much of Barlow’s back catalog, the tune deftly blends merciless introspection with infectious beats and a lilting hook.