Wavves

With a sound so basic and raw that Jay Reatard sounds like a rocket scientist by comparison, San Diego’s Wavves achieves the improbable: making a two-piece outfit come off even simpler than the sum of its constituents. It also makes for some drama: Singer/guitarist Nathan Williams had to cancel a European tour earlier this summer after he and former drummer Ryan Ulsh had an on-stage meltdown in front of a huge festival crowd in Barcelona. New drummer Zach Hill of Hella (and about fifty other bands) is on board for the duo’s current tour, which showcases Williams’s bloody-knuckled, cosmically distorted pop songs and inexplicable obsession with goths. Just pray he keeps his shit together long enough to make it through this Larimer Lounge set, especially seeing as how the group’s recent self-titled, Fat Possum-released full-length is one of the most bracing indie records of 2009.