If there’s one thing the indie rock press has overvalued in recent years, it is consistency. I mean, how many times has the phrase “the band’s most consistent album to date” been trumpeted in reviews? To me, that’s an alternate way of saying “this band is safe and unimaginative.” Indian Jewelry, a loose group of noisemakers from Houston, often get flack for inconsistency. This is a shame because in another world, it would be praised as “adventurousness”. Picking up the reins from subversive acts like Excepter, Butthole Surfers, and Suicide, Indian Jewelry work in the field of dark, tribal psychedelia. Their music buzzes, fuzzes, throbs, swarms, and swoons. American weirdness abounds, evoking moods not dissimilar from Rudy Wurlitzer’s psychedelic novel Nog; a mushroom trip covered in earthy-grime. A new record, Free Gold, is due out in May. From the sounds of the two songs I’ve heard, they haven’t taken the criticism to heart. Indie rock critics have no business reviewing Indian Jewelry to begin with. With Du Hexen Hase and Pyramids. Sunset Tavern, 5433 Ballard Ave. N.W., 784-4880. 9 p.m. $6. BRIAN J. BARR

Sun., April 27, 9 p.m., 2008