Personally, I’m more than stoked for Meneguar tonight. It’ll be really tough to follow up yesterday’s Mono show, but I have faith that Meneguar will bring an entirely different kind of awesome. An except from this week’s Underage:

Meneguar were introduced to me by accident; I remember the first time I heard them. A friend meant to send me a link to another band’s MySpace page but sent a link to Meneguar instead. I don’t even remember who that other band was because I couldn’t stop listening to Meneguar’s “House of Cats.” The urgent drums and pulsating guitar in the first 10 seconds, the bass and lyrics that kick in just after… This was back in 2005 and at that time it had been a while since I’d heard anything like it—Meneguar were as wickedly captivating as David Bowie in Labyrinth (and they don’t even need the stretch pants and mullet to pull it off).

Here’s what this week’s U&Cs recommend:

Carolyn Mark
(Easy Street Records, West Seattle) Carolyn Mark doesn’t sing anything without delighting in it. This isn’t hard to figure out when listening to the Victoria, BC, native’s records of old, full of country stompin’ and funny, frank lyrics that earned her too charming a rep to hide behind former bandmate Neko Case. Even on this year’s breakup record, Nothing Is Free, she makes the most of heartbreak—”I thought, hmm, lace panties, when I looked up her dress,” she sings on “Pictures at Five,” before her voice belts out the album title above a blast of fiddle. She might not be over the guy, but that doesn’t stop her from singing through her trademark grin. SAM MACHKOVECH

No-Fi Soul Rebellion, the Harborrats
(Jules Maes Saloon) Two things I learned from No-Fi Soul Rebellion’s last Seattle appearance: (1) They play really short, really sweaty sets. The husband-wife duo of singer/beatmaker Mark and, um, faux bassist/cheerleader Andrea Heimer were finished a half hour after they started, and homeboy’s homemade basketball jersey was totally drenched (though homegirl looked perfectly perky). (2) The band’s guiding philosophy: Playfulness and sincerity can go together hand in hand. Examples of this ecstatic union show up all over their just-released Terrible Muscles, an unabashedly exuberant electro-funk dance party of a record. This is a band on a mission to make you feel good. JONATHAN ZWICKEL