Haram

Last month, Henry Rollins was investigated by authorities after a fellow airline passenger glimpsed him reading Ahmed Rashid's Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia. After all, what kind of sick terrorist sympathizer would want to educate himself about the world's second-largest religion? Haram had better watch out: The Virginia-based band takes its name from the Islamic word meaning "immoral and forbidden." Its music, though, is good old-fashioned American experimental post-hardcore. Featuring former members of such scathing outfits as pg. 99, Majority Rule and City of Caterpillar, Haram just released its self-titled debut, a disc that taps into the skewed and caustic artiness of Hot Snakes and Skull Kontrol even as it ventilates itself with shards of Pixies-gauge melody. Haram is on the road with the equally blasphemous Bullet Train to Vegas and Read Yellow, and its Denver stop will be graced by the Planes Mistaken for Stars side project, Git Some. Just follow the sounds of blown speakers, breaking bones and rattled brain cages. That, and domestic spy satellites.