In Stranger Suggests:

Grand Hallway

(Fremont Abbey) Tonight, to celebrate the release of their new and lovely pop record Promenade, the eight-piece indie-folk band Grand Hallway will perform in the Fremont Abbey's gorgeous-sounding Great Hall with... wait for it... the 30-piece Seattle Rock Orchestra. It will be a lush flurry of percussion, trumpets, and strings, and they're even bringing in a small children's choir for some of the vocals, making the evening simultaneously beautiful, adorable, and stunning. Megan Seling

Larry Mizell Jr on In Method Man:

Method Man & Redman, Spaceman, Fatal Lucciauno, Jay Barz, DJ Marc Sense

(Showbox at the Market) Method Man is coming, too, to Showbox at the Market on September 17, with his blunt brother Redman, not to mention Fatal Lucciauno, Spaceman, Jay Barz, and Marc Sense. Come to think of it, Red and Meth dropped Blackout! 2 this summer as well—10 years after the original Blackout! arrived. (Goddamn, this reminds me of a summer 20 years past when Back to the Future II, Ghostbusters II, and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade all came out. Best birthday ever, homie.)

John Vanderslice, Pink Mountaintops, Mimicking Birds

(Crocodile) Between his two main projects, Black Mountain and Pink Mountaintops, Vancouver's Stephen McBean has proved himself to be a consistently impressive songwriter. Outside Love, his third Pink Mountaintops release, is that band's most coherent record yet. McBean abandons the drum-machine-driven pop and sexual metaphors of earlier work in favor of heavy, orchestral country-tinged rock ballads about life's big subjects. See "Holiday," where, over a triumphant melody, McBean and covocalist Amber Webber bellow lines like "Those who've seen the backs of the cowards/Have seen how fast they can run" and "Everyone I love/Deserves a holiday in the sun/Almost every day/Till the lions are off of their backs." Amen. GRANT BRISSEY

Om, Grouper, Lichens, Scout Niblett

(Neumos) A band containing two-thirds of stoner-doom legends Sleep and releasing records on underground-metal label Southern Lord is bound to create certain expectations, but bass and drum duo Om never fit the sinister, thunderous mold suggested by their affiliations. Rather, the band weave prolonged meditations built upon hypnotic pulses and Eastern melodies. Even when the songs reach their apex, the emphasis is more on groove than attack. Rob Lowe, the solo artist behind Lichens, is a fitting prelude to Om's trance-inducing set. Working with little more than a few arpeggiated blips, some sparse guitar work, and countless layers of looped chirping, chanting, moaning, and singing, Lowe creates a haunting drone that is part shaman ritual, part exorcism. BRIAN COOK

Benefit for the King County Coalition Against Domestic Violence: Star Anna and the Laughing Dogs, Mark Pickerel and His Praying Hands, Anna Coogan, Tony Fulgham

(Sunset) If you can name a worthier cause than domestic violence, I'll punch your grandmother in the face. Tonight's all-star, alt-country-flavored benefit for the King County Coalition Against Domestic Violence features Star Anna (recently seen subtly tearing the house down at the Triple Door tribute to Patsy Cline), Mark Pickerel and His Praying Hands, and more. DAVID SCHMADER

For more concerts and live music going on tonight, take a look at our online music calendar.