Farewell Flight
Farewell Flight have spent the past few years on the road promoting their debut album, which was originally made for a label that folded before the record came out. But things are finally looking up for the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania quartet. After some tweaking here and there — including re-signing with their old record company, which is now open for business again, and briefly changing their name — Farewell Flight are back on tour, this time playing a batch of new songs from their recently released second album, Out for Blood. The band rerecorded some of the songs from their debut, which hit harder and faster this time around. The more aggressive approach seems to be working, since the group's shows are drawing more fans these days. Farewell Flight are packing their van (which runs on vegetable oil!) for yet another swing through the states, with a stop in Akron this week. — Max Hayden
With Attack Cat, Asha Dearest, and a Loss for Words. 8 p.m. Thursday, September 1. Musica, Akron. Tickets: $8; call 330-374-1114 or visit ticketweb.com.
Ashley Brooke Toussant
Ashley Brooke Toussant takes old forms, old sounds, and old instruments, and adds some contemporary twists to them. She's equal parts Joan Baez and Joanna Newsom, but softer and meeker than both. The debut album by the Kent-based singer-songwriter is appropriately called Sweetheart, earning its title with moseying bass lines, subtly soaring lap steel, and sweet lyrics sung with bird-like innocence. There's something fragile and unsullied about the way Toussant coos simple lines like "Let me call you sweetheart, I'm in love with you." Sweetheart shows an incredible amount of musical maturity, with a finger firmly on the pulse of what's good about the current indie-folk movement. Toussant is indeed sweet, but she packs plenty of sadness too: Sweetheart's occasional melancholy adds depth to her ditties about love and the darkness rooted so deeply in Appalachian folk tradition. Her show this weekend doubles as an album-release party. — Lydia Munnell
With Whisper Signal, Julia Klee, and Plug in Reindeer. 6:30 p.m. Friday, September 2. Musica, Akron. Tickets: $10; call 330-374-1114 or visit ticketweb.com.
Blueprint
So many rappers rhyme about money, clubs, and shorties these days that when someone like Blueprint dips back into the old-school for more pressing issues, you tend to notice. From a church choirboy named Albert Shepard to a Rhymesayers-approved MC, producer, and rapper, the Columbus-based Blueprint made his name collaborating with Illogic in Greenhouse Effect and superstar producer RJD2 in Soul Position, eventually releasing his first solo album, The Weightroom, in 2003. He's put out, in one form or another, more than a dozen EPs and albums over the past decade, dabbling in instrumental music, low-fi funk, Radiohead remakes, hip-hop, Who covers, and, of course, straight-up rap. So basically he does it all. His most recent album, Adventures in Counter-Culture, was released earlier this year by the Rhymesayers, and true to the label's rep, the record blurs the lines among electronica, indie rock, and hip-hop. — Courtney Kerrigan
With Illogic. 9 p.m. Sunday, September 4. Beachland Tavern. Tickets: $10; call 216-383-1124 or visit beachlandballroom.com.
Kamelot
When you've been handed the surname Youngblood, chances are pretty good that someday you'll start a kick-ass metal band. Thomas Youngblood got around to forming Kamelot 20 years ago. After two shrug-worthy cathedral romps, the Tampa group enlisted a new singer in 1997, and the change was pivotal. Roy Kahn's three years of opera training added emotional flair to Youngblood's blistering guitar shreds, and by 2005's Black Halo, the band was thrust into the symphonic metal spotlight. But Kahn left Kamelot last year, saying he was burned out (which is totally understandable after 13 years of singing about ghosts and black halos). Rhapsody of Fire's Fabio Lione has stepped up to the mic for the band's current tour as the search continues for a permanent new singer. So the Kamelot you'll see onstage at Peabody's this week may not sound exactly like the Kamelot you're familiar with. But be assured they'll still rock your ass off. — Phil Barnes
With Alestorm, Blackguard, and the Agonist. 7 p.m. Tuesday, September 6. Peabody's. Tickets: $22, $18 in advance; call 216-776-9999 or visit peabodys.com.
Tedeschi Trucks Band
Slide guitar master Derek Trucks has found a fix for the all-too-familiar (and marriage-ruining) rock-star problem of being away from home too much: He put his wife in the band. "I felt like her talent had never been properly showcased," Trucks says of blues singer and guitarist Susan Tedeschi, who now fronts the Tedeschi Trucks Band. "People always put her on these songs where she's belting it out, but there's a lot of subtlety in her voice." Tucked away in their home studio in Jacksonville, Florida, the couple hammered out the songs that ended up on their debut album, Revelator. Trucks' fluid playing is all over the record, occasionally laid out as a smorgasbord of powerful slide riffs that very few guitarists can imitate. The 11-member group has no shortage of road momentum, and Trucks — who also plays with the Allman Brothers Band — is in no hurry to slow down. "There's nothing I'd rather be doing right now than making music with this band," he says. — Ryan Young
7 p.m. Friday, September 2. Jacobs Pavilion at Nautica. Tickets: $10-$90; call 800-745-3000 or visit livenation.com.
Jazz pianist Helen Sung has spent the past year on the road playing high-profile gigs with Esperanza Spalding and Terri Lyne Carrington. Her own touring band is made up of some of the genre's very best, including bassist Reuben Rogers and drummer Rudy Royston. She was born and raised in Houston, but made her name in N.Y.C.'s jazz scene, where she quickly became a favorite of NPR listeners and classical-jazz enthusiasts. Find out what the fuss is about when she plays Nighttown on Tuesday. — Michael Gallucci
