With the "Taste of Chaos" tour — the indoor, wintertime yang to the Warped Tour’s punk-rock-summer-camp yin — Warped founder Kevin Lyman hopes to nourish the audience for crossover screamo in the same way his previous venture built the all-ages audience for pop punk. And he couldn’t have picked a better line-up. We spent all last summer hating the Used and My Chemical Romance, but how long can you root against the 21st-century equivalent of the Penguins and the Cadillacs? Death angels with dirty faces who champion bad hygiene and worse poetry, they’re also fond of a steel-belted symphonic-pop gloss that Phil Spector would likely be churning out if he’d been born in 1986. A Static Lullaby’s forthcoming Columbia debut, Faso Latido, proves once again that Ferret emo-metal kids clean up nice. And though Killswitch Engage’s The End of Heartbreak (Roadrunner) lost the Grammy to Motörhead’s grade-Z Metallica cover, that’s a snub they can wear as a badge of honor, since the album’s closest relatives, Pantera’s Vulgar Display of Power and Metallica’s Master of Puppets, didn’t even get nominated. The tour stops Monday at Tsongas Arena (978-848-6900) in Lowell — with Boston’s No One’s Kind opening — and Wednesday at Cumberland County Civic Center (207-775-3458) in Portland.

We’re sure Trey Azagthoth hates the entire "Chaos" line-up — after all, Morbid Angel never made even the token concessions to accessibility that bands like Slayer indulged in back in the mid ’80s. And look where it’s got them: opening for Sepultura’s hippier half, Soulfly. On Saturday, they’re at the Palladium (800-477-6849) in Worcester. In lesser news, Helmet — or at least the latest band of grunge-era ringers Page Hamilton has scared up under that name — are marooned with Chevelle and Crossfade on the Sno-Core Tour, which plays Saturday at Lupo’s at the Strand (401-331-LUPO) in Providence, Sunday at the Palladium, and Tuesday at the Webster Theater (860-525-5553) in Hartford.

Elsewhere, Medeski Martin & Wood play tonight (February 24) at Avalon (617-931-2000) in Boston and Saturday at Higher Ground (802-654-8888) in South Burlington, Vermont. G-Unit capo Lloyd Banks plays Friday at Lupo’s and Sunday at Toad’s Place (203-624-TOAD) in New Haven. And if you missed the new-version Le Tigre — whose rebirth as a slick, sensual agitpop spectacle has been miraculous, especially for those of us who saw them suck at the Milky Way back in the day — note that they’re playing a couple of make-up dates: Tuesday at Smith College (413-585-2162) in Northampton and Wednesday at Toad’s Place.