Band of Heathens, with Cady Wire. Tractor Tavern, 5213 Ballard Ave. N.W., 789-3599. 9 p.m. $10. Beware acronym-wielding hipsters. When speaking of country rock and the initials B.O.H., don’t be quick to assume the reference is to Ben Bridwell and his Band of Horses. When you cross the border of the Lone Star State, locals will presume you’re talking about Band of Heathens, a collective of Austin musicians that purveys a similar brand of unwashed American music. But the Heathens take is on the Jay Farrar tip and super-duper Texafied. They sound so much like the Live Music Capital of the World that two minutes into any of their stellar tracks you’ll start to crave BBQ sauce and a bourbon with a Shiner Bock back. MA’CHELL DUMA LAVASSARNathaniel Rateliff, with Pearly Gate Music, Battleme. Triple Door, 216 Union St., 838-4333. 7:30 p.m. $10. All ages. The old moniker Nathaniel Rateliff and the Wheel was fitting for a band that carried and moved something bigger than themselves, a band started by a few friends from Missouri who’d moved to Colorado, leaving marks in all the trails they’d crossed and surely worn down in return. Stripped of “The Wheel,” perhaps Nathaniel Rateliff and company are settling down. In Memory of Loss is a wailing, whinnying debut of impassioned folk, its sparse but epic diaries punctuated by gospel harmonies and hums. Recalling the cautious strums of Tallest Man on Earth and cathartic style of Bon Iver, Nathaniel Rateliff produces the kind of music that whispers but echoes, the kind of music to sit with and swallow. MARY PAULINE DIAZ