Towering Trees, a band of four from Portland, Oregon, make music they describe as, “contemporary snake charming,” but "indie rock with roots influences" is quite appropriate too. Their first album, “Hangover Hearts,” released in 2013, is a compilation of the band's best qualities: warming vocals, jangly electric guitar, and ardent melodrama. A good example of this is their track “Misfortune.” The song starts out with a plucked guitar melody that pierces through the steady percussion undercurrent, while the vocals, “I feel so sick, I feel so weak,” oscillate above the instrumentation, sounding almost like a whine. Towering Trees will be playing tonight at Kelly’s Olympian for the first time in six months! If you can’t make it, or don’t live in Portland, give their Kickstarter-funded album a listen on Bandcamp. - Isabel Rolston

Sometimes, it seems like EVERYTHING happens in ONE night. My Facebook is blowing up, show flyers are all over the place and with only a few hours to go, my decision-making anxiety is at an all-time high. It's very possible that I'm not the only one, so here's a basic breakdown of all the awesomeness that will be happening all over our fair city tonight:

The JAG Album Release Party
"Pondermental Wonderment In Hypocricity"
Palaver Thursday at FooBAR
9:00 pm
$5
w/ Bantam Foxes, The Mumzees and Uzi

The best of underground East Nashville are coming out to play. Prepare to get weird.

Tesla Rossa EP Release Show
"Heat Bath"
The Basement East
8:30 pm
$10
w/ The Beech Benders, Milktooth, Becca Mancari and Luella

The most eclectic bill of the night, with everything from indie to beach to folk rock. And you can ONLY get the EP at this show or one of their gigs on tour, so grab 'em while they last.

Miller Made Music Presents: The Gills
Exit/In
8:00 pm
$5
w/ Lauren Strange and Behold the Brave

Fancy yourself a heat-seeker? This lineup miiiight burn your eyebrows off.

Give the bands a listen, and choose wisely...                   -Caroline Bowman

Like the sound explorers Keiji Haino and Vashti Bunyan, Jessica Nicole Collins has channeled complex moods through BERU's stream-of-consciousness applique since her 2006 year-end single "Spaces In Time". Her live engineered sound collages would completely envelop venues and listeners, emanating existential themes and affectations of world-weariness. But her newest EP “Adult Emotions” is different.

“For this EP, I wanted to make music with sounds that I've loved since I was a child.”

Just as the title suggests, BERU’s newest collection is mature in conception: dense and measured, wistful and purgative. But the songs are also an eidetic recollection of innocence in the eye of loss.

“One of my best friends passed away last year, and I needed to set my emotions to music from a time before I knew pain like this. I have to sing about my loss, so I can look at it from the outside and try and understand it.”

She tags the release with descriptors like “island goth”, “smooth rock”, “newage”, and “doom metal”, and rightfully so — these influences, and more, are abound in each of the six songs. Collins recites ‘90s adolescence by memory, from Yucatan pan flutes, Miami Vice, “the chillest of beats Enigma used,” and Bryan Adams’ suave guitar-lead auras.

BERU’s EP “Adult Emotions” is available now, free to stream on Bandcamp. Her next performance will be on December 5th, to help celebrate the sophomore album release of Los Angeles’ synthpop/goth trio Ghost Noise at Non Plus Ultra. Watch the music video for "Darker Currents", directed by Michael Norquest, below. - Ryan Mo

The San Francisco based neo psych band, Seventeen Evergreen will be celebrating their album release at The Chapel on October 23rd. The duo´s new EP, Epiphanie Solaire is being physically released by the Santa Cruz based limited edition vinyl label, Spiritual Pajamas. Make sure you pick up Seventeen Evergreen´s new 12 inch vinyl and check out the digital release via Bandcamp.

The Swedish rock band, Dungen will also be performing at the album release party. This is going to be a good show! Do your best to support awesome local independent artists!

Of the small contingent of Toronto artists that traveled to NYC last week to participate in the CMJ Music Marathon, Greys was by far the loudest - and ended up also getting the most attention. The quartet plays post-hardcore unapologetically inspired to legendary band Fugazi (one of their songs is named after the DC band's guitarist Guy Picciotto). They've been around since 2011 and have a European tour, two EPs and two singles under their belt. A new 7", entitled "Repulsion." will be released on October 30th. Check out their powerful single "If Anything," streaming below.