Califone

(UW HUB) There's always been something cinematic about Califone, but not in the traditional Hollywood wide-screen sense. Instead, Califone's music flickers dimly, as if thrown from a rickety old projector, with threads shaking at the edges of the screen, colors bled and saturated. Their songs tumble forward with a rusty momentum, accompanied by the threat that a reel is coming loose or the projector is about to strip a gear. Califone's new album, All My Friends Are Funeral Singers, meanwhile, ranks with 2006's Roots & Crowns as the best work they've done. Their loose-limbed folk instrumentation is still present, with ragged acoustic guitars, pianos, and fiddles lining the edges of a more industrious sound; machines and drones whir alongside electric hums, and amplifier cabinets emit fragmented, processed lines. This tour has Califone performing an abbreviated, conventional set, but the rest of the performance is dedicated to a live soundtrack of the film version of Funeral Singers, which screens over the band's heads. NED LANNAMANN See also preview.

Heiress, Grayceon, the Abodox, Dog Shredder

(Funhouse) It is December, and America is officially in holiday mode: Every public place is constantly flooded with hundreds of people, while Christmas music and ringing bells are playing fucking everywhere. In times like this, you need a safe spot—a place in your head to which you can escape when you're stuck at the grocery store and forced to endure Luther Vandross's "This Christmas" for the third time in 24 hours. And that place to go is straight into the arms of Heiress, a Seattle-based, sludgy metal band with songs like "Suffocate on Command" and "Tomb It May Concern." With Heiress, every day can be Black Friday. MEGAN SELING

GIVE Benefit Concert: Grand Archives, D.Black, Grant Olsen, Kinski, Gabriel Mintz

(Crocodile) The show behind the album. Tonight boasts a benefit concert with a roster of select acts featured on GIVE, a compilation showcasing a diverse amalgam of Seattle-based artists geared to give a few local charities a holiday hookup. There's a little something for everyone in both the show and the album, so choose your own adventure. KALEB GUBERNICK

See also: the preview in this week's issue.

And there's always more in our complete music calendar listings.