Rocky Votolato, Adam H. Stephens, the Terrordactyls

(Neumos) In the fall of 2009, Votolato finally returned to the road with his first batch of new material in years, although he did so on a decidedly small scale. Like Barsuk labelmate Dave Bazan, Votolato embarked on a tour playing in people's private living rooms, just him and an acoustic guitar and a chair, to audiences of about 20 to 30 people.

"The fans who really care about me and what I'm doing were super into it," he says. "And it's great to be able to connect with people on that intimate of a level."

If such an intimate tour isn't likely to convert hordes of new fans, perhaps neither is the resulting album, True Devotion. For one thing, after this many years, many folks will have already heard and made up their mind about Votolato's plainspoken acoustic songs. For another, True Devotion is a fine, but not an amazing, record. The album purposefully abandons the alt-country twang and fuller band setups of his previous records in favor of a more bare acoustic sound; it feels designed for intimate performance. But while that honest simplicity comes off well in Votolato's unadorned but nimble guitar playing and his sometimes raspy vocals, it can often feel almost like artlessness in his lyrics about fighting riptides (don't!) or how "sparklers only burn for so long." An exception is the song "Instrument," the album's most immediately affecting song and its seeming centerpiece, with its lyrics about finding freedom not on the road, as is the classic cliché, but in coming home. ERIC GRANDY

TRUST One-Year Anniversary: Kid Hops, SunTzu Sound, Jeremy Ellis

(Chop Suey) Over the past 12 months, this roving afterhours party run by SunTzu Sound's J-Justice and KEXP's Kid Hops has become a revelatory refuge of revelry. The resident DJs' deep knowledge of myriad bass-centric dance genres translates into sophisticated groove marathons. Detroit's Jeremy Ellis—essentially a white, sighted, 21st-century Stevie Wonder—helps them celebrate TRUST's smile-intensive year with his soulful vocals, dynamically funky beats flamboyantly tapped out on an MPC, and strutting keyboard riffs. Trust! DAVE SEGAL

Magma Festival: Sir Richard Bishop, Arrington de Dionyso, Jason Webley

(Fremont Abbey) Arrington de Dionyso is no stranger to the abnormal, but Malaikat Dan Singa, his latest, is a good deal more challenging than any of his Old Time Relijun endeavors. Blaring horns, Tuvan throat singing, odd rhythms, and periodic dissonance are familiar cornerstones here, but add Indonesian influence and lyrics, and things get downright hallucinatory. "The music is driving and intentionally repetitive—zero changes in key or tempo whatsoever during songs," Dionyso commented on Line Out, The Stranger's music blog, after another comment disparaged his new material. "Anyways, you wouldn't say it was boring if you knew any Indonesian. The lyrics are the most cohesive artistic statement I have ever made in my 20-plus-years songwriting and recording career." Either way, "Kedalaman Air" is a fucking jam. GRANT BRISSEY

Gomez, Buddy

(Crocodile) In their native UK, Gomez are Mercury Prize—winning crowd pleasers, but despite a decade of trying—including a high-profile signing to Dave Matthews's record label and splashy opening gigs for Pearl Jam—the band's quest for mainstream U.S. stardom remains elusive. Tonight and tomorrow, Gomez bring their reliably melodic indie rock to a sold-out Crocodile, along with L.A.-based openers Buddy, another band that traffics in the kind of songs that sound right at home scoring emotional moments of Grey's Anatomy. DAVID SCHMADER

Laura Veirs & the Hall of Flames, the Old Believers, Cataldo

(Tractor) Touring in support of her stripped-down new record, July Flame—the first on her Raven Marching Band Records label and already called "the best album of 2010" by Colin Meloy—Laura Veirs lands at the Tractor tonight along with the folky Portland collective the Old Believers and Seattle's Cataldo (aka "Eric Anderson and His Friends Who Play Music Well"). Expect a night of pure neotraditionalist delight. DAVID SCHMADER

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