Dallas quintet Fair to Midland strikes a balance between blustery hard rock and brain-feeding prog on its debut album, Fables From a Mayfly: What I Tell You Three Times Is True. Little surprise, since it was executive produced by System of a Down’s Serj Tankian — no stranger to songs jacked up on coke-and-Red-Bull cocktails. Tunes like “Dance of the Manatee” cartwheel from pretty melodies to hammer-hard riffs and back again. Even the song’s title sounds like something Peter Gabriel-era Genesis would have dived into.
Fri., June 22, 7:30 p.m.

This article appears in Jun 20-26, 2007.