Sound Check is the Globe’s weekly guide to concerts, tunes, and trends rooted in Boston and beyond. This column covers May 3-9.
Boston DJ Anngelle Wood can name details about every Rock & Roll Rumble in recent memory, from past competitors to a timeline of venues that have hosted the annual competition. But there’s one aspect of the Boston music tradition that she can’t share: a prediction about this year’s winner. And not just because she doesn’t pick favorites.
“If I tried, I could never even answer that question,” says Wood, host of the battle-of-the-bands style tournament, which will select its next victor Saturday at Sonia. “I simply have no idea.”
Initially hosted by WBCN at The Rathskeller, the Rock & Roll Rumble has crowned one champion of the Boston rock scene nearly every year since 1979. As the longest-running competition of its kind in the United States, the Rumble is often referred to as the “World Series of Boston rock,” producing winners like ‘Til Tuesday, the Sheila Divine, and most recently, Salem skate punks One Fall. Wood’s online radio program Boston Emissions (formerly broadcast on WBCN and WZLX) currently organizes and curates the competition.
Yet 45 years after the inaugural Rumble, there’s still no way to accurately guess which band will prevail, largely because finalists often represent vastly different subgenres. This year’s remaining competitors are no exception, spanning the ‘90s-tinged hardcore of Worcester’s GUT HEALTH to echoes of early aughts alternative provided by Lowell band the Ghouls. Boston-based wild card Other Brother Darryl, meanwhile, roam plains of placid alt-country. A small sampling of the artists’ new music includes GUT HEALTH’s riotous single “CONVERSATION LOST,” the restless tune “Hellbound” from the Ghouls, and Other Brother Darryl’s earnest ballad “Gypsy Girl.”
Following the bands’ three competing sets, Halfcocked will take the stage as the customary guest performer, reintroducing a bit of Rumble history themselves; the Boston hard rock band was the competition’s first-ever wild card finalist in 1999, and hasn’t played live since 2002.
Their set bridges a gap between generations of competitors and their supporters, an aspect of the Rumble that’s just as significant as crowning the next winner.
“The divide between modern-day creators and people who remember what WFNX and WBCN were to the music community grows exponentially every year,” Wood notes. But in 2024, the tradition’s longevity represents not what the Greater Boston rock scene has lost — such as certain FM rock stations — but rather, what it still has: hungry bands churning out raucous tunes and consistently drawing new fans to the community.
“Every night, there are definitely new faces,” Wood affirms. “It’s really fun, encouraging, and a bit inspiring when a whole new crop of people come out and they discover what it is.”
GIG GUIDE
Somerville’s Arts at the Armory hosts a night of avant-garde hip-hop on Friday, welcoming Nashville poet and producer R.A.P. Ferreira, experimental New Orleans emcee Cavalier, and Massachusetts genre-masher Pink Navel. Iowa hardcore group Modern Life Is War, who recently released a compilation of their “Tribulation Worksongs” EPs, storm the Armory on Wednesday.
After delivering one of the most anticipated records of 2024, Americana singer-songwriter Sarah Jarosz delivers cuts from “Polaroid Lovers” at The Sinclair on Friday. Boston-born alternative band Slothrust toast a decade since the release of their record “Of Course You Do” the following night, joined by Maine’s equally serrated rock act Weakened Friends.
The Folk Collective at Passim hosts its annual showcase on Saturday, featuring members from the 2022-2024 cohort including Kim Moberg, Gabriella Simpkins, Audrey Pearl, Anju, and Almira Ara. The show marks the second annual concert from the Folk Collective, a rotating group of artists that launched last year to help diversify programming at the historic Cambridge folk club.
Jamaican dancehall giant Sean Paul heats up Leader Bank Pavilion on Tuesday, marking the Seaport venue’s second show of 2024. Accompanying Paul is Cimafunk, who’s fresh off the Coachella stage after making history as the first Cuban-born artist to perform at the California music fest.
Laufey’s “Bewitched: The Goddess Tour” enchants the Boch Center’s Wang Theatre with jazz-pop on Tuesday and Wednesday. The Icelandic-Chinese artist — and Berklee alumna — received a major career boost from her performance with Billy Joel at this year’s Grammy Awards, where she also nabbed the honor for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album for her 2023 release “Bewitched.”
Philadelphia group Sheer Mag shred through ‘70s-style riffs from their new record “Playing Favorites” at Crystal Ballroom on Sunday, with Boston’s Pile opening the evening. Sweet Pill, another Philly favorite, bring their strident “Starchild” EP to the Davis Square ballroom on Wednesday.
NOW SPINNING
The Lemon Twigs, “A Dream Is All We Know.” Brothers Brian and Michael D’Addario faithfully reproduce the swoon-worthy harmonies and jangly guitar tones of the ‘60s on their fifth record, which corrals a menagerie of sprightly rock tunes in the vein of “Pet Sounds.” Stylistic nods to the Beatles are no surprise either, especially considering Sean Ono Lennon’s contribution as co-producer of “In the Eyes of the Girl.”
Naomi Westwater, “OBNTS.” In the wake of the COVID pandemic and climate change’s encroaching impact, the new single from Naomi Westwater says what everyone’s thinking: “Oh, but nothing’s the same” (shortened as an acronym for the song’s title). The Massachusetts folk artist unfurls tendrils of compassion for a weathered world on this preview of their forthcoming album “Cycle & Change,” due out next year.
Kamasi Washington, “Fearless Movement.” On his fifth studio album, saxophonist, composer, and overall jazz giant Kamasi Washington sculpts sound with the specific intention of inspiring the titular “fearless movement.” Supplemented by bursts of individualism from collaborators like Thundercat, George Clinton, and André 3000, Washington folds his own kind of dance record into his newest galaxy of mesmeric jazz.
BONUS TRACK
Folk fans who didn’t catch a local screening of “Indigo Girls: It’s Only Life After All” can rent the new documentary via video on demand starting Tuesday. The new film about the iconic duo of Amy Ray and Emily Saliers whittles roughly 1,000 hours of footage into a tight, tender narrative chronicling the pair’s organic — and in many ways, revolutionary — blend of artistry and activism.