BeamBlog

Despite the live music landscape being dominated by musicians marking album anniversaries and celebrating their various eras, there are still plenty of acts who remain vital and horizon-facing, even after years, if not decades, onstage. These artists have been pathfinders and bridge-builders, and the future they helped ensure is happening now.

The dissolution of Sonic Youth in 2011 did little to stop Kim Gordon from exploring the extremes of rock music, first as part of noise duo Body/Head and then as a solo act. The kickoff of the latter era, 2019’s “No Home Record,” was dominated by electro-industrial unease and Gordon’s blank-affect vocals and oblique lyrics, with bits of speaker-rattling beats drawn from hip-hop and the darker recesses of dance music. Her forthcoming album “The Collective” is a further journey into the claustrophobic grooves, car-chime synths and playground cadences of SoundCloud rap, with lead singles “I’m a Man” and “Bye Bye” eviscerating toxic masculinity and mining menace from a to-do list, respectively. (March 22 at 8 p.m. at the Black Cat. blackcatdc.com. $35.)

First emerging in the decade after Sonic Youth but no less influential is Sleater-Kinney. After the riot grrrl beginnings of guitarist-vocalists Carrie Brownstein and Corin Tucker, the band’s late-’90s breakthrough was powered by drummer Janet Weiss. The trio took a nearly decade-long hiatus in the 2000s, with the triad subsequently becoming a duo after Weiss’s exit. This year’s “Little Rope” finds the band as ferocious as ever: “Say It Like You Mean It” is triumphantly anthemic, and “Hunt You Down” gallops through an electric forest as if pursued by a predator. Completed after the untimely deaths of Brownstein’s mother and stepfather, the album sees the duo pushing through grief, no matter how untidy, broken and wild they feel in its wake. (March 12 at 8 p.m. at the Anthem. theanthemdc.com. $45-$75.)

Similarly shaped by grief is the latest album by Mary Timony, the indie rock fixture whose résumé includes stints in Helium and Wild Flag, her band with Brownstein and Weiss, formed during Sleater-Kinney’s hiatus. Recorded after a period mourning the end of a long-term relationship and the loss of both her parents, “Untame the Tiger” eschews the fuzzy fun of Ex Hex and punk sneer of Hammered Hulls for timeless rock songwriting, pairing her guitar virtuosity with drumming by Dave Mattacks of British folk-rock legends Fairport Convention. (March 14 at 7:30 p.m. at the Black Cat. blackcatdc.com. $20-$22.)

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The pandemic-spurred tumult of the last few years illuminates the recent solo work of Laura Jane Grace, the frontwoman of punk band Against Me! The surprise-released, true-to-title “Stay Alive” was recorded in three days during the height of pandemic uncertainty in 2020, stripping down Grace’s songs, save for a few drum-machine experiments. The recently released “Hole in My Head” continues her folk-punk pursuits, in the back-to-basics “Punk Rock in Basements”; jangly, rockabilly-ish “I’m Not a Cop”; and “Dysphoria Hoodie,” a sideways tribute to a fixture of gender dysphoria — a central focus of her songwriting since she came out as transgender in 2012. (March 12 at 7:30 p.m. at the Howard Theatre. thehowardtheatre.com. $29.50.)

For nearly two decades, French singer Lætitia Sadier was Nico for Gen X as the singer of eclectic avant-pop act Stereolab, a band whose spacey-dreamy tunes inspired, either directly or not, a generation of indie artists and the chilled waves of loungy electronic pop. As a solo artist, Sadier has continued such dreamweaving, skipping across decades and continents for influences that make albums like this year’s “Rooting for Love” familiar to Stereolab fans. (March 23 at 8 p.m. at Songbyrd. songbyrddc.com. $17-$20.)

Sleater-Kinney and Sonic Youth are in the mix of influences for the Kills, an English-American duo that has been pumping out bruised drum-machine blues for years. While more polished efforts proved less effective, last year’s “God Games” came closest to blowing up their formula with songs that are orchestral and programmed but no less powerful. Alison Mosshart’s vocals are all whiskey and smoke and ready for a residency at the Roadhouse in “Twin Peaks.” (March 1 at 7 p.m. at 9:30 Club. 930.com. $42.50.)

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While the early work of Toronto four-piece the Beaches lent a glam sheen to garage rock, a la Timony’s D.C. trio Ex Hex, the group headed in a pop direction on a sophomore album, “Blame My Ex,” that is more in line with the surf-ready, alt-rock nostalgia of Olivia Rodrigo. Opening for the Beaches is Boyish, a duo that met at Berklee College of Music and churns out dreamy indie pop with some heft, tackling issues of gender and sexuality alongside collaborator and fellow pop explorer King Princess. (March 4 at 8 p.m. at the Howard Theatre. thehowardtheatre.com. Sold out.)

Clementine Creevy began releasing garage rock with a feminist edge in the Sleater-Kinney tradition as a teenager before founding the band Cherry Glazerr. After experimenting with pop forms and danceable rhythms, the band returned last year with a fourth album, “I Don’t Want You Anymore,” that proved it still has a gift for mixing sugar-and-spice vocals with walloping riffs. At 27 years old, Creevy might be more mature but is still best in the muck. “Somebody snort my ashes today,” she sings. “I could eat you like a pill.” (March 12 at 8 p.m. at Union Stage. unionstage.com. $25-$40.)

With her latest project, Los Angeles rocker Kate Clover looks back fondly on the original punks of her hometown, including X, the Germs and the Gun Club. Her debut album, “Bleed Your Heart Out,” was full to the brim with straight-ahead punk rock, and the first taste of her next album, “The Apocalypse Dream,” takes her California dreams to a sock hop like Marty McFly in a DeLorean. (March 28 at 8 p.m. at Pie Shop. pieshopdc.com. $15-$18.)

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Philadelphia four-piece Sheer Mag is similarly steeped in 1970s rock, with an ear for the riffs that fueled hard rock’s heyday and a lead singer in Tina Halladay who is a siren with a sneer. Their debut for Third Man Records, “Playing Favorites,” bounds between the rollicking, Kiss-off “Eat It and Beat It” and the disco-rock hybrid “All Lined Up.” (March 29 at 8 p.m. at Songbyrd. songbyrddc.com. $20-$22.)

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