[Thursday, December 11] At The Moore a few months back, Cave Singers vocalist Pete Quirk joked that their next album would be titled Cave Singers on Campus. ItaE™s doubtful that Matador, their label, would allow that, but if the new songs they played that night were any indication, their sophomore album is gonna be killer. The new songs were much more breezy and rocking than the intimate front-porch picking of Invitation Songs. With Past Lives, Triumph of Lethargy Skinned Alive To Death. Neumos, 925 E. Pike St., 709-9467. 8 p.m., $12. Listen to Seeds of Night.

[Thursday, December 11] If youaE™ve ever seen Amanda Palmer aE“ best known as one-half of Boston aEœBrechtian Punk CabaretaE duo Dresden Dolls aE“ perform live, you know just how intense, visually arresting, bawdy, and theatrical the singer and multi-instrumentalist can be. Knowing this, I was still plenty surprised and blown away by PalmeraE™s solo show the other week aE“ sheaE™s on tour in support of her recently released record Who Killed Amanda Palmer. In the midst of it, I thought to myself, aEœThis is kinda like Tori Amos meets Andrew Lloyd Webber, with a steampunk twist,aE and that description still stands. With The Danger Ensemble, the Builders and the Butchers, Zoe Keating. Showbox at the Market, 1426 First Ave., 628-3151. 8 p.m., $20 adv., $22 dos. All ages. Listen to Leeds United.

[Thursday, December 11] If your band is labeled post-hardcore, but your new album displays a sound that’s progressing away from that place, what do you become? Hopefully, something better, even that something isnaE™t easily described. And that is where These Arms Are Snakes find themselves with the release of Tail Swallower and Dove, the band’s third full studio effort. How this new mesh of pump organs and screamed lyrical threats will translate live is anyone’s guess, but the general assumption is that it’s going to be face meltingly radical. Chop Suey, 1325 E. Madison St., 324-8000. 8 p.m., $12. All ages. Listen to Red Line Season.

[Friday, December 12] Right after The BlowaE™s Poor Aim: Love Songs came out, single aEœHey BoyaE exploded like a huge, sticky pink gum bubble all over indie popaE™s blasAc face, and frontwoman Khaela Maricich looked downright bewildered at the sudden glut of adoration. Well, the same thing just might happen to the Nextdoor Neighbors, a two-woman electropop band from Olympia who finished second in this yearaE™s EMP Sound Off! Competition. The band just put out their first album on Bicycle Records, Magic Vs. the Machine, a lovely collection of lo-fi songs that mesh electronicist Kathy CotesaE™ robotic bleeps and bloops and lyricist Jessie HillaE™s sweet, plaintive vocals about the painful transition from adolescent to adult. With the Coyotes. Easy Street Records and CafAc, 4559 California Ave. S.W., 938-3279. 9:30 p.m., $5. Listen to Magic Vs. the Machine.

[Friday, December 12] Wikipedia bills R&B princess Ashanti as an American singer-songwriter, record producer, actress, dancer, and model.aE She’s certainly talented, and has more than enough foxiness and celebrity to spare, so what’s she doing at the frickin’ Emerald Queen? My theory: Had she been born 10 years earlier, she would be a Celine-and-Mariah level diva, but fickle ol’ fate has dealt Ms. A the misfortune of coming up under the golden shadow of a certain other fabulously s baby diva (the one with a new record who rocks a big, big B) whose stranglehold on the position of hip hop go-to girl is Fort Knox solid. Emerald Queen Casino, 2102 Alexander, Tacoma, 253-594-7777. 8:30 p.m., $40-$85. Listen to Body on Me.

[Friday, December 12] The Goatriders Horde approaches, cloven hooves clacking ominously on frost-hardened tundra. Ice balls rain from the sky directly into skulls, causing insanity. Enormous trees, limbs unbowed by wintry conditions, violently avenge fallen timber. 3 Inches of Blood makes some grim lyrical predictions, but as long as youaE™re willing to echo its sacred mantras (aEœnone can match the metal,aE aEœheavy metal is our lightaE), the group will offer powerful musical protection against orcs, Lady Deathwish, night marauders, and other ghastly enemies. With the Accused, Black Breath, Heiress. El Corazon, 109 Eastlake Ave. E., 381-3094. 7 p.m., $13 adv., $15 dos. All ages. Listen to Trial of Champions.

[Saturday, December 13] Les Hormones, a three-piece San Francisco punk band with a penchant for messy rockabilly riffs, sort of like the band Buddy Holly might’ve formed if he had not died in that plane crash, but instead was caught in a time-warp right before the plane went down and transported to Los Angeles circa 1982, where he made friends with X and Dwight Yoakam. Les HormonesaE™ first album was a self-released CD-R thataE™s no longer for purchase (bummer!), but you can pick up a 7 that just came out on local Sea-Tac label Heads Up!. Wild Rose, 1021 E. Pike St., 324-9210. 8 p.m. Listen to Swamp Rat.

[Sunday, December 14] Something about the Holy Ghost Revival’s music inspires feelings of either intense love or outright disgust. Due in part to band members heckling the crowd and their occasional unwillingness to play a coherent set, their point seems to be that a reaction, good or bad, is better than none at all. Though HGR doesn’t have a huge following, those who consider themselves fans tend to support the band with all the religious zeal their theological name suggests. This show in particular should be interesting, since the band just returned from six months of living in London and touring around Western Europe. With Wild Orchid Children. Neumos, 925 E. Pike St., 709-9467. 8 p.m., $8. Listen to Green Raised Vein.

[Sunday, December 14] New York City quartet Longwave emerged some six years ago with a terrific major label debut, The Strangest Things, on which the band grabbed its love of shoegazer atmospherics and rammed it into smartly written, elegantly rendered, and highly addictive guitar-rock tunes. Things looked bright, but subsequent lineup changes and label hassles appeared to do them in, and while the foursome never disbanded, they laid low while frontman Steve Schiltz continued to write music and toured as a member of good pal (and Strokes guitarist) Albert Hammond, Jr.aE™s band. Fortunately, the retooled Longwave is back with another fantastic album, Secrets Are Sinister, which stays true to the bandaE™s anthemic, propulsive vibe. With the Pale Pacific, Eulogies. Chop Suey, 1325 E. Madison St., 324-8000. 8 p.m., $10. Listen to Sirens in the Deep Sea.

[Monday, December 15] In 2007, three members of the aE˜70s LA psychedelic religious cult Ya Ho Wha 13 recorded Sonic Portation. It is arguably the greatest reunion album ever made. These folks were followers of a curious fellow named Father Yod, a former WWII flying ace from Ohio who moved to Los Angeles, studied yoga, and founded the hip Sunset Strip vegetarian restaurant The Source. A magnetic figure, Father Yod became the spiritual leader of over 100 men and women who lived communally in a Hollywood Hills mansion practicing nearly everything under the sun including astrology, nudism, Tantrism, freemasonry, cold showers, the Qabbala, staring at the sun, natural birth, life, and death. Like all good hippies, music was emphasized, and the Ya Ho Wha 13 band recorded albums of mind-flaying improv guitar and psychedelic throbbing. Nectar, 412 N. 36th St., 632-2020. 8 p.m., $12.