Dave Segal on The Intelligence:

The Intelligence, the Girls, Little Cuts

(Comet) No matter the paltry hometown fan base, the Intelligence—with ex—A Frames drummer Finberg as the lone constant in a revolving lineup—have been creating some of the catchiest noise pop of this decade. Their songs merge primal, danceable beats with caustic guitar squalls, head-bobbing bass lines, and serpentine keyboard motifs. Over that foundation, Finberg declaims like a Northwestern Nikki Sudden, his reverbed voice a font of discontent and snide, humorous observations in the mix's middle distance. Trace elements of Suicide's insistent pulsations, Swell Maps' tuneful discord, and the Fall's hypnotic repetition and knack for noncloying hooks coalesce in the Intelligence's five albums, making for a catalog teeming with concise, memorable gems (they've never issued a song over four minutes long). Two of those full-lengths, Fake Surfers and Crepuscule with Pacman, have come out this year, solidifying the Intelligence's standing as one of the finest and most prolific current progenitors of fidelity-challenged rock.

In Up & Coming tonight:

Love Battery, SHiPS, Exohxo, the Navins

(High Dive) Exohxo recently expanded from a duo—the acoustic-y, sickly sweet indie-pop side project of Speaker Speaker's Jasen Samford and Danny Oleson—to a seven-piece band, the standard rock quartet bolstered by keys and twin violins. Those orchestral touches are sharp and bright and way upfront on the band's new album, Other Ghosts, and it can feel like a weirdly ornate amount of dressing for what are essentially simple pop-rock songs, especially since Oleson's voice—he shares vocal duties with Samford—is limited to flat, nasally pop-punk tones (the oft-made Sicko comparison sticks because it's spot-fucking-on). Other Ghosts is made of pretty maudlin stuff, and it suggests that weepy and twee may not really be playing to these guys' strengths. ERIC GRANDY

Unnatural Helpers, Box Elders, Eugene Wendell & the Demon Rind, Scraps

(Funhouse) Yup, the late show at the bar has four bands playing. Fortunately, all bands embrace the golden age of radio and keep it under the three-minute mark. Unnatural Helpers' awesomely damaged garage rock is notoriously concise, both in content and form. Box Elders revel in the sound of AM radio pop, but filter it through a wash of reverb and delay, giving their otherwise sunny compositions an element of Roky Erickson—esque psychedelic danger. Eugene Wendell & the Demon Rind find members of the Fastbacks and the Cops eschewing their more bombastic musical habits for a dash of Americana while still retaining the piss and vinegar you'd expect from that pedigree. Scraps open the show with their surprisingly agile, lo-fi, keyboard-driven anthems. BRIAN COOK

For more events tonight, search our online music calendar for a complete listing of concerts and shows.