SUFJAN STEVENS, HELADO NEGRO
(Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 SW Broadway) Before a friend talked him out of it, Sufjan Stevens considered calling his new record Oregon. The shift was for the best. While largely set in and inspired by the Beaver State, Stevens' Carrie & Lowell plumbs depths far more personal: the death of his mother. Altogether, Stevens recorded 30 or 40 songs, but didn't know what to do with them. He feared seeming indulgent, or to be reveling in his misery. To him, the work seemed artless, but friends thought otherwise. At their urging, and with the help of composer Thomas Bartlett—who also pushed against the title Oregon—the recordings were culled to the brisk 11 tracks that make up Carrie & Lowell. It is, as the majority of Stevens' proper full-lengths are, a heartbreaking work of staggering genius. ANDREW R TONRY Read My, What a Busy Week!


DROWSE, DRAGGING AN OX THROUGH WATER, SANCHO, TROUBLED BY INSECTS
(The Know, 2026 NE Alberta) Around three minutes into “Melt,” a cacophonous wall of noise recedes to a wiry, wobbly verse. Kyle Bates’ woozy vocals float on bending melodies and hazy rhythmic progressions. The opening track from Drowse’s debut LP, Soon Asleep, sounds like you’re on drugs, which is precisely the effect Bates was going for. But not in the way you might be thinking: Bates’ musical documentation of his medication regimen following a 2011 suicide attempt drives the majority of the Drowse catalog. It’s dark stuff, to be certain, but Bates wasn’t interested in romanticizing the darkness. Soon Asleep acts both as therapy and as an awareness multimedia project, with a comic having been released with Bates’ earlier three-song EP, Songs to Sleep On, and a 40-page memoir to be packaged with Soon Asleep. RYAN J. PRADO Read our article on Drowse.


RON SEXSMITH, ALICE PHOEBE LOU, CHRIS MARGOLIN
(Star Theater, 13 NW 6th) The trudging, downtrodden ballads of Ron Sexsmith have their ideal time and place: a cloud-drowsy weekend morning right as the first cup of coffee's kicking in, for instance. This isn't to suggest, however, that the Canadian singer/songwriter's entire oeuvre is a kind of "lifestyle" accouterment, a swatch of audio wallpaper to go along with the carefully chosen earthenware and window treatments that decorate one's dream condo. Once in a while, Sexsmith latches onto something godly, like the careful, delicately ripe "If Only Avenue" from 2013's Forever Endeavour. A perfectly realized hybrid of the twin towers of 1972 Neil-dom (Young's Harvest and Diamond's Moods), the song's a gorgeous slice of sorrow, given a vintage-pop shoeshine and some expertly tasteful orchestral accompaniment. Meanwhile, Sexsmith's just-released album, Carousel One, is a relatively upbeat affair—he's even smiling, slightly, on the cover. NED LANNAMANN


CROWBAR, BATTLECROSS, LORD DYING, PROVEN, DISENCHANTER
(Hawthorne Theatre, 1507 SE César E. Chávez) As progenitors of the sludge-metal paradigm, longtime New Orleans crew Crowbar have shown few signs of slowing down. Despite a pretty extensive turnstile of members since the band's inception in 1991, Crowbar's primary lynchpin, Kirk Windstein, as well as their personal and sonic affiliations with Southern metal stalwarts like Pantera, Down, and Superjoint Ritual (so, basically, Phil Anselmo) has cemented their status as a precursor to the onslaught of doom and down-tuned metal oozing its way out of the nation's basements. The band's been touring in support of their 2014 LP, Symmetry in Black, and they brought Portland's own Lord Dying with them for this most recent run. Watch them all beat the shit out of their gear in dropped tuning. RYAN J. PRADO


HALESTORM, RIVAL SONS, ROYAL THUNDER
(Roseland, 8 NW 6th) Halestorm is a Pennsylvania band that's currently making the transition from the fringes of hard rock into the mainstream; the group's new album Into the Wild Life recently debuted at number five on Billboard's album chart, far outselling any of its previous efforts (no small feat in 2015). And while Halestorm is, um... not good... it's easy to envision the best act on this bill, Royal Thunder, following a similar path. The Atlanta-based band's sound revolves around the burly guitar work of Josh Weaver and frontwoman Mlny Parsonz's skyscraping vocals. Together they blend psychedelic metal, alt-rock, and heavy blues in a way that feels totally natural and seamless. Royal Thunder's new album Crooked Doors is big, brash, honest, and well crafted, and it's one of the better heavy releases of 2015 so far. It's also further proof that, with the right breaks, Parsonz is a star waiting to happen. BEN SALMON