It’s not easy to figure out how to spend your one precious Saturday per week, but that’s no excuse to get paralyzed by choice. I’ll even make the decision for you: you’re going to Hassle Night at the Lilypad in Cambridge with the Craters, Beth Israel, and Whip Appeal. The Craters are a Boston crew who layer watery, shimmering synth noise over breakbeats and stabs of electronics. What starts as ambient noise coalesces into hook-filled jams before you know what’s what. Beth Israel are from New York by way of Austin and also know how to ping your brain’s melodic pleasure center, but they get there with guitars, finding a hypnotic groove and locking in. They also have a deep bag of tricks: squelchy guitar tones, noodled embellishments to their regularly scheduled tunes, and even some strings. Supporting these two heavy hitters will be Whip Appeal, another group of locals whose twangy guitar and flat keyboards get periodically engulfed by squalls of noise. It all mixes together to create a kind of backyard treehouse aesthetic, but the wise know it takes a lot of skill to sound that ramshackle. This show is three acts only, and I have a sneaking suspicion they’re all going extra deep because of it. Be there!

~Peter Steele

Flyer by the stellar Krystle Brown.

Whip Appeal