Swervedriver

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Shoegaze usually gets described as pretty, which does the genre's heaviest band no favors at all. These were the ones with the motorik pulse and the guitars tuned toward menace, English but obsessed with American highways, and the records have aged better than almost anything else from that scene precisely because they were never delicate. Adam Franklin still sings under the noise rather than over it. Thirty-plus years on, the live sound is genuinely loud in a way the reissues cannot convey, and the band leans on the early material without treating it as a museum exhibit. Out in the high desert the room is wood and low-ceilinged and the guitars fill it completely. The band reunited in 2008 after more than a decade apart and has kept a steady touring pace since, which is why the current live show is tighter than the reunion-tour reputation suggests. Music at 9:00 PM in Pioneertown, out past Yucca Valley and the Joshua Tree turnoff, on a Thursday. Shows this size are where you find out how many other people in your area have been quietly carrying the same records around for decades.