<strong>TURISAS Just the thing to get you fired up for Beltane! Paganfest 2012 headliners Turisas parlay a mashup of Symphonic metal, Queen-like bombast and Finnish folklore into a blood-spurting but ultimately uplifting Dark Age saga. Unlike many Battle Metaleers, frontman Matthais Nygard shuns growling for a sepulchral Peter Murphy croon that verges on Broadway show tunes. The alternately chugging and soaring backup is so committed to the bardic songs about voyaging, plundering and pillaging, that they never topple into full-on GWAR absurdity. Think Jim "Bat Out of Hell" Steinman meets Disney's "Pirates of the Caribbean" ride - but with Vikings. Fellow blood and thunder acolytes Alestorm, Arkona, Huntress and Aether Realm help stoke the flames of Balor. $20-$23. Tremont Music Hall.

PHILLIP ROEBUCK At the start of the 20th century, Sears, Roebuck and Company would ship you a house. It came in a boxcar - all you had to do was put it together. And there it was, a self-contained unit, wherever you wanted it to go. As a banjo-strumming solo roots-punk artist with a bass drum strapped to his back, Phillip Roebuck is the classic Sears House. A self-contained unit, all he needs to play a show is space enough to stand. His music implies as much ramshackle rail-riding Americana as classic Wobbly rally anthems. As for the latter, he probably knows a few. With Jym Chapman and the Migrant Workers, The Joy Kills and Time Sawyer. $7-$9. The Milestone.

ANGEL SNOW With a name straight out of an Appalachian fable, it figures that the story of Angel Snow's big break is a showbiz fairytale. A casual meeting with Alison Krause led to a fruitful collaboration with Krause's songwriting brother Viktor. The partnership netted Angel and Viktor the newgrass buzz cut "Lie Awake" that features prominently on Krause's Paper Airplane. This slightly magical success story befits Snow and her songs, which are lilting and ethereal yet remain grounded in dusty acoustic folk pop. Achingly heartfelt vocals recall Sarah McLachlan minus the new age atmospherics, and the song craft traces a straight line to the rapture, redemption and brooding beauty of freak folk goddess Judee Sill. $10 in advance. The Evening Muse.

ALT-CTRL-SLEEP Perhaps if they played more live shows, we'd discuss the music of Joe and April Diaco in the same revered tones reserved for some of the city's better-known acts. After all, Alt-Ctrl-Sleep's demos attracted the interest of dream-pop producer and guru Kramer (Galaxie 500, Low). The logistics for that Alt-Kramer collaboration didn't pan out, but it did help land the Diacos a contract with Lakeshore Records. It's easy to hear what attracted the label - gently undulating melodies cocooned in layers of reverb guitar, keys and Joe's pleasantly processed vocals, all pushed along by April's voice and her subtle brush strokes and cymbal crashes. If you need a foothold, it's a bit like Summer Sun-era Yo La Tengo. With Jason Herring & the Mystery Plan. Petra's Piano Bar.

We Were Promised Jetpacks Glaswegians are a hard lot, or so folks like filmmaker Ken Loach and author Irvine Welsh are always insisting. But this generation of the city's rich music heritage - including this quartet's FatCat label-mates the Twilight Sad and Frightened Rabbit - have tilted more Belle & Sebastian romantic than they have, say, aggro Mogwai head-butt. But with 2011's In the Pit of the Stomach, WWPJ broke from that mold with a blow-to-the-solar-plexus of post-punk guitar riffs, hi-hat abuse and, naturally, signer Adam Thompson's thick Scotts' burr. It's meant to sound epic and often does, though occasionally the emoting can get melodramatic and, let's face it, emo-like. $12. Neighborhood Theatre.

BATTLE BEASTS, STRONGHOLDCRVSADER Battle Beasts is one appropriately-named act. The Charlotte duo plays flat-out, reckless drum-and-bass noise-rock (yeah, a lot like Lightning Bolt). Yet Battle Beasts' mix of hardcore pummel with wild-eyed danceability results in a more ruthless creature than the Bolt's unicorns-n-rainbows bliss-punk: the desperate grit and grime of the genre's basement origins shine through. Their unlikely cousin Strongholdcrvsader plays minimalist drone-sludge. And though Strongholdcrvsader moves at a slower pace, it's still sped up compared to obvious influences like pre-2005 Earth. With Elenora Fagan, Such Mad Hope and Sham Lee. $6-$9. The Milestone.

SANTIGOLD One of the more adventurous contempo-pop songstresses, "Creator" creator Santigold will perform at the arena Friday, opening for some obnoxious white-boy funk-rock band whose name ... uh - well, it rhymes with Bed Rot Shilly Lepers. (Feel free to take a pass on the headliners and make it an early night.) Santi White's database of skittering, buzzing electro-skra plucks some of the better elements of '80s punk and new wave, cuts and pastes it with some forward-looking production tricks and adds, by turns, a little of the sassy sweetness of Gwen Stefani, the raw DIY aesthetic of the Slits, and the rude-girl rap of M.I.A. From the melodic hits ("L.E.S. Artistes," "I'm a Lady") to the more out-there fare like the electronic minimalism of "Starstruck" and dubby elasticity of "My Superman," Santigold's '08 debut was an out-of-the-box classic. Here's looking forward to the new material from her long-awaited second set, Master of My Make-Believe. And while all the Lepers fans are going nuts for their heroes' embarrassing Hendrix impersonations and bad Funkadelic moves, you can make your easy exit out to the parking lot. $47.15-$69.15. Time Warner Cable Arena.

Red Hot Chili Peppers Remember when Red Hot Chili Peppers used to bring the funk, wear socks on their cocks and generally rock the fuck out with everything they had? Neither do they. Once "Under the Bridge" hit the airwaves, Kiedis and Co. mellowed out and found a new pop-rock groove. I don't expect anything from Uplift Mofo or Freaky Styley, but would it kill them to play a few from Mother's Milk? With Santigold. $47.15-$69.15. Time Warner Cable Arena.

SYSTEMS Post-rock and thrash seem to have nothing in common. The patient, atmospheric epics of bands like Mono, built on slow crescendos from whisper quiet to end-of-the-world loud, may be the polar opposite of thrash's anxious, claustrophobic churn. Yet Carrboro's Systems renders a single style from these disparate worlds, bringing post-rock's soaring, lonesome guitars and lumbering rhythms into a hard-edged stew of discordant guitar clashes and desperate, hoarse shouts. Last year's EP, Ghost Medicine, is a fantastically bleak treatise on death and loss presented in Systems' remarkable fused heaviness. With Torch Runner, Red Warlock and Monarchist. $6-$9. The Milestone.

Robert Glasper Experiment Throw any preconceived genre definitions out the window when you're talking about Robert Glasper. The 33-year-old jazz pianist teeters on a line between jazz and hip-hop that isn't often toyed with as he pushes the boundaries of the traditional as far as they can go. His latest album, Black Radio, welcomes guests ranging from Erykah Badu and Bilal to Lupe Fiasco and Lalah Hathaway, though he's just as likely to throw a Nirvana cover into his live set. $20-$30. 7:30 p.m. Neighborhood Theatre.