Concert Previews

The quality of Miranda Lambert's songwriting hasn't quite kept up with the former Nashville Star contestant's rise in the country music power rankings. But while the best albums by Blake Shelton's better half are still the all-fired-up Kerosene (2005) and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (2007), the tough-talking twangy Texan still outclasses the vast majority of her Music City competition. And her Pistol Annies side project, with Ashley Monroe and Angaleena Presley, has produced one pretty great CD (2011's Hell on Heels) and one pretty good one (this year's Annie Up). On Friday night, the firearm-loving firebrand headlines her Locked & Reloaded tour with Dierks Bentley second on the bill.

- Dan DeLuca

With classics such as "Blue Monday," "Bizarre Love Triangle," and "Perfect Kiss," and their seamless merging of guitars, synthesizers, sequencers, and club rhythms, New Order, the band that arose from the hallowed Joy Division, is one of the most influential bands of the 1980s. The short tour that brings New Order to the Mann Friday night heralds the return of keyboardist Gillian Gilbert, who left prior to New Order's last new album, 2005's desultory Waiting for the Sirens' Call. This year's Lost Sirens collects mostly previously released tracks from the 2005 sessions. But it also marks the absence of Peter Hook, whose bass-playing was central to the melodies of most New Order songs. Hook left acrimoniously, and he has been performing complete New Order albums with his own group. So expect this incarnation of the band to have something to prove Friday night; expect also a few Joy Division songs in the set list.

- Steve Klinge

Danielia Cotton's latest album, The Gun in Your Hand, is a record born of personal tragedy and survival. It partly explains the four-year gap between albums for the popular Jersey-bred, New York-based singer-guitarist. The new songs, recorded after the loss of her unborn twins, and just before Cotton was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, since overcome, have an undeniable immediacy and rank a solid zero on the "victim" scale. Produced by Kevin Salem - whose "Lighthouse Keeper" is the disc's lead single - the CD showcases Cotton's raspy wail and impressive guitar-playing, which this year earned her a place on RollingOut.com's "Five Black Artists Who Are Saving Rock Music" list. Never one to be pigeonholed musically, Cotton can sound like a sultry blues balladeer on one song and a hard-rock wailer on the next. Backed by her four-member band, she makes a strong connection with her audience onstage. Plus, no other woman singer around can give quite the same no-holds-barred treatment to Prince's "Purple Rain."

- Nicole Pensiero