Go heavy

SOME OF THE most alluring bands playing this year are what you might call heavy. And that's a weird thing for me to be thinking because I don't worship Satan or even partake, as they say. I think lack of female companionship has drawn me to music that makes me feel like I'm being attacked by a mountain lion in heat. If, in Noise Pops of yesteryear, you've tended toward the jangle of the Aislers Set (who, I regret, aren't playing this year) or you've ever cried at a Mountain Goats show, maybe it's time you embraced the heavy too. Here are my recommendations on how to do that:

1. Practice head twirls to the delirium-inducing guitar solos and spiraling oscillators of Comets on Fire. The local fivepiece are heavier than a lead balloon and play the kind of splintering psych that opens up into drifting piano parts, leaving you teetering on the precipice of agony and ecstasy for hours. Julian Cope, the arbiter of all things acidic, called last year's Blue Cathedral (Sub Pop) "peak experience rock."


Flying Luttenbachers photo by Mariah Gardner
2. Get on your knees and embrace the virtuosity of the Flying Luttenbachers. Listening to the album that marked their departure from free-jazz noise and no wave and their arrival in the prog-metal zone, Infection and Decline (ugEXPLODE/Troubleman Unlimited), I thought to myself, "Wow. This band play like they hate me." True, I'm a bit paranoid, but there's something cool about a band whose extremely forceful and compact sound is so antagonizing you feel unworthy of them. Now that Weasel Walter has Mike Green of Burmese on bass and Ed Rodriguez on guitar, the group look a lot more like lovers, but they still play like fighters. Their ultra-composed new album, The Void (ugEXPLODE/Troubleman Unlimited), means they're guaranteed to play the most insane stuff at Noise Pop. And with Mick Barr, the unfathomably fast guitarist of Orthrelm fame, joining the band's ranks for as long as they can keep him, you can count on losing your freaking mind at their show.

3. Read some Derrida if you want to be prepared for the Fucking Champs, who are back to play bassless and severely deconstructed metal with new guitarist and singer Phil Manley of Trans Am. When it comes to Oakland's High on Fire, you might want to duck and cover. They're louder than nuclear war. It's a wonder the earth is still in one piece. But really, you should just inhale.

So don't be afraid, dear fragile child of swoony indie pop. If I can handle it, so can you.

Comets on Fire play with No Doctors, Hospitals, and Residual Echo 9 p.m., Feb. 24, Cafe du Nord, 2170 Market, S.F. $12. (415) 861-5016.

Flying Luttenbachers play with Les Georges Lenigrad, Chow Nasty, and Postcoitus 9 p.m., Feb. 25, Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., S.F. $10. (415) 621-4455.

Fucking Champs and High on Fire play with Kylesa and Say Bok Gwai 9 p.m., Feb. 26, 12 Galaxies, 2565 Mission, S.F. $12. (415) 970-9777.

Deborah Giattina