Loving Thunder, Elephant Rider, Black Pussy, Bad Ghost
(Comet) Loving Thunder have a BIG sound. There are guitars flying every which way, there's some sharp drumming pushing everything forward, there are some sci-fi-movie-soundtrack keyboards keeping things interesting, there's a swarm of voices—or is it one plangent wail?—sounding like an apocalyptic choir. It's like a military marching band from the coolest country ever, about to go to glorious war. And there's a little Black Sabbath in there somewhere, too, to spice things up and pull the rock back to its verse-chorus-verse roots before it gets too acid-trippy for its own good. Any band that can pull all these elements together into something that works are clearly a band to keep an eye on. PAUL CONSTANT

Hear Loving Thunder via MySpace.

^{Photo by laura musselman via TIG's Flickr Pool}

The Kindness Kind, Hey Marseilles, M. Bison, Star Lake Drownings, the Femurs, the Mangles
(Chop Suey) Only Three Imaginary Girls can make a holiday party feel so naughty—delightfully so, of course, but there's something about John Roderick of the Long Winters dressed up as Santa—with those aviator shades, a few beers in his belly, and that missing tooth—that is just... unsettling. As well as hilarious! Tonight's soundtrack won't suck, either, with performances by the Kindness Kind, Hey Marseilles, and Bangles tribute band the Mangles. The icing on the cupcake is that Three Imaginary Girls is donating all proceeds to Solid Ground, a local organization fighting poverty with job- and housing-placement programs, a hunger action center that feeds more than 4,000 families, and skill-building opportunities. MEGAN SELING

Joshua Morrison; Husbands, Love Your Wives
(Triple Door) Joshua Morrison is a soft-voiced singer- songwriter and army soldier who wrote many of his tender acoustic songs while serving in Iraq. Morrison is the opposite of whatever stereotypes there are about the more beef-headed U.S. soldiers who shoot guns while blasting Kid Rock, Nickelback, and System of a Down. His simple songs, often on the sadder side of the emotional spectrum, easily reverberate throughout the room, even with the most gentle guitar strumming. And his voice is filled with fervor, despite its quiet tenderness. The simplest lines become poignant; in the song "Home," when he sings, "When I saw you in that dress, I felt alive for the first time," I get goose bumps. MEGAN SELING

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