Roadtrips

On what is shaping up to be one of the biggest mall-boy albums of the all-important holiday shopping season, the deftones have mastered all the major salable neo-metal idioms and cliches -- their new Around the Fur (on Madonna's label) paints them as a more Helmety Korn with some Pantera thrown in, the obligatory chick on bass, and a little crooning that sounds kinda like the dude from Filter trying to imitate, of all people, Sunny Day Real Estate's Jeremy Enigck. Even more maddening than their blatant derivations is the realization that the first single sounds, er, kinda good. Okay, the whole thing's actually not too bad. Shit, just get it over with and go buy the fucking thing. Their show with fellow children-of-the-Korn Limp Bizkit at St. John's Gym (800-477-6849) in Clinton on November 26 sold out in a week; but you can try catching them in Providence at Lupo's Heartbreak Hotel (401-272-5876) on the biggest shopping day of the year with Will Haven and Shed.

The good half of Wilco -- Jeff Tweedy and Jay Bennett -- are out doing the intimate acoustic thing Monday November 24 at the Iron Horse (413-584-0610), in Northampton, and November 25 at the Middle East (864-EAST), in Cambridge. Upstart Records journeyman Dennis Brennan fronts a rocking band Friday the 21st at Gilrein's (508-791-2583), in Worcester; the next night he's at the Lizard Lounge (617-547-0759), in Cambridge, while his son Jacob fronts a blissfully blistering Victory Records hardcore alloy, Cast Iron Hike, at Worcester's Sir Morgan's Cove (508-753-2188). File under 'chip off the ol' block': Cast Iron bringing ace Boston roots-rockabilly showmen the Racketeers, on a bill that also includes metallurgists Kilgore Smudge (who have a derivative major-label debut due soon from Irving Azoff's Revolution Records) and Gangsta Bitch Barbie. Plus: Pennywise and Murphy's Law are at Lupo's that same night; there's more Victory hardcore from Connecticut's Hatebreed on the 23rd at the Espresso Bar (508-770-1455), in Worcester, and on the 24th at the Met Cafe (401-861-2142), in Providence; and Sick of It All hit the Met Cafe on November 25.

See, here's the deal -- the Throat Singers of Tuva are these guys from Outer Mongolia who can sing, like, two or three notes each at the same time. So even though there are only four of 'em, it takes a couple dozen Bulgarian women to post up. Which is what happens when the Huun Huur Tu Throat Singers go head to head with the 24-babushka Bulgarian Women's Choir in a no-holds-barred battle for former-Eastern Bloc supremacy. They're at Harvard's Sanders Theatre (617-496-2222) on Saturday November 22; they also do WFCR'S "Music to Your Ears" fall benefit concert at Mount Holyoke's Chapin Auditorium in South Hadley (800-843-8425) on the 23rd.

-- CC