Dissever

Venues such as Flavour, which usually stick to DJ nights, have slowly begun to invite their midweek patrons to choose between the dance floor and the mosh pit. It's a good sign that indicates the live music scene is being rejuvenated, and it allows bands to get their music in front of the right pair of ears. For the progressive metal band Dissever, which has a Tool-meets-Eddie Vedder sound, that opportunity recently came when it hooked up with Jeremy Staska, who has worked with Nonpoint and Poison the Well. Now he's helping the band release its first EP by the end of the year. Tonight, expect a heavy drum backbeat, a dizzying display of guitar effects, and story songs such as "A Joker's Confession," the tale of a promiscuous medieval woman and her joker lover. -- Kris Conesa