Concert Previews

Heavy, heavier, heavier still, the heaviest. The quadruple bill at Johnny Brenda's on Saturday will not be for the faint of heart or the delicate of eardrum. The top card is all-instrumental, West Philadelphia "doom jazz" band Stinking Lizaveta - consisting of brothers Yanni and Alexi Papadopoulos and drummer Cheshire Agusta, who are appropriately named after a mute character in Fyodor Dostoyevsky's

The Brothers Karamazov

. The veteran trio's new album,

Sacrifice & Bliss,

due out March 31 on the At a Loss label, is as expansive, adventurous and involving as the band's open-eared followers have come to expect. Also intriguing will be a rare appearance from Iron Man, the Maryland metal band fronted by guitarist Alfred Morris III, the African American Ozzy Osbourne fan whose band is often billed as "blacker than Black Sabbath." Misstallica, the all-female Metallica cover band whose name used to be unprintable, and Glen Mills metal band Pale Divine round out the bill.

- Dan DeLuca

The troubles of the Middle Eastern world melt away when composer and violin virtuoso Simon Shaheen, 53, begins to play. Of course, there is a world-weary tone to all that he writes. This master of Arab song was born in the village of Tarshiha in Galilee and moved to Haifa as a boy where he lived among Palestinians and Jews. In interviews, Shaheen speaks longingly of being a Palestinian musician in Israel unable to play in Arab countries as the primary reason for moving to the United States in 1980. With a U.S. passport, he could travel the world. So every note he plays - whether sadly slow or vibrantly alive - breathes with that freedom. From solo albums to sessions with saxophonist Henry Threadgill and producer Bill Laswell to his fusion jazz ensemble Qantara and its mix of Western classical styles and traditional Arabic sounds, it is more than a little apparent that what Shaheen creates is the ultimate mash-up. And though he's elated in making such revolutionary sounds, you can't help but hear the sorrow of his youth in all that Simon Shaheen plays.

- A.D. Amorosi

With her palpable charisma and rare sultry-sweet combination, Lykke Li handily bridges the gap between fellow Swedish sensations Peter, Bjorn and John - a third of whom produced her international breakthrough,

Youth Novels

- and Robyn. She's a little bit folk, a little bit hip-hop, and a lot breathy pop, with sneaky, doe-eyed refrains rubbing warmly up against infectious, defiant choruses. Bjorn Yttling's barebones production manages to be pleasantly dreamy as well, underscoring the intimacy of Li's bedroom whisper (see opener "Melodies & Desires"). If the extrovert in us gravitates toward the immediate pleasure of singles "I'm Good, I'm Gone" and the Justice-like "Breaking It Up," other tracks are just waiting for the right remix.

- Doug Wallen