10 Best Concerts of the Week: Guster, POWERWOLF, Elle King and More

This is one of the heavier concert weeks North Texas has seen in a while, with four metal shows and a hardcore show making the top 10. Kicking the week off is Wisconsin stoner metal band Bongzilla, who are playing a show at Amplified Live Thursday night. The same venue will host Morbid Angel over the weekend and a co-headlining show featuring Cradle of Filth and DevilDriver early next week. This week will also see the first-ever Dallas date by longstanding German power metal band POWERWOLF as well as a St. Patrick's Day hardcore show from Pennsylvania's Pissed Jeans. On the lighter side of things, New England indie rock band Guster plays a sold-out show at the Granada Friday night, while next week will see a show from '60s band The Zombies, '90s singer-songwriter Joan Osborne and the currently country singer Elle King, best known for her pop hit "Ex's and Oh's." All nine of these shows will be taking place in Dallas this week, but the 10th one in Denton would definitely be worth a Sunday drive.
Bongzilla
7 p.m. Thursday, March 16, Amplified Live, 10261 Technology Blvd. E. $12 at seetickets.us

Since 1995, Wisconsin stoner metal band Bongzilla has been known for two things — cannabis, and lots of cannabis. It's hard to believe that the band has been keeping things going with such a narrow lyrical focus for nearly three decades, but it's a true testament to what a bottomless well of inspiration one's true passion can be. The thing about Bongzilla, and really all stoner metal, that keeps people coming back for more is the way the music wraps around you like a heavy cloud of smoke. The music is loud and powerful, but it's hardly aggressive. In fact, you might even call it peaceful. While some may seek the vibrations of acoustic guitars and hand drums, Bongzilla proves just how mellow heavy riffs can be. The band is currently touring in support of its first album of new material since 2005, Weedsconsin, and will have support from Canadian hardcore band Sparrows, Alaskan doom metal band Turbid North and local Wooden Earth.
Guster
6 p.m. Friday, March 17, Granada Theater, 3524 Greenville Ave. $108+ at stubhub.com

Boston indie rock band Guster has been going strong in the underground music world for more than three decades now. Since its members met at freshmen orientation at Tufts University in 1991, the band has been known for its unique instrumentation, with each of its members playing multiple instruments. Adam Gardner and Ryan Miller share lead vocal duties and take turns playing guitar, bass guitar, keyboard and banjo, all with backup from the band's most recent acquisition, guitarist Luke Reynolds. Every once in a while, Gardner or Miller will pick up a trumpet, harmonica, ukulele or keytar. Drummer Brian Rosenworcel also doubles as a trombone player for some songs. Guster's last album was 2019's Look Alive, but the band has spent the last few years re-releasing early material. The Friday night show with special guest Nicole Atkins is officially sold out, but you can still find tickets through verified resellers.
Pissed Jeans
7 p.m. Friday, March 17, Club Dada, 2720 Elm St. $15 at prekindle.com

Allentown, Pennsylvania, hardcore band Pissed Jeans is more than just a memorable name. Styling themselves after 1980s hardcore and post-hardcore bands from the East and West coasts, Pissed Jeans plays a loud and aggressive style of hardcore intended to leave the listener with, well, pissed jeans. The band has been on Seattle's Sub Pop Records since 2005 and released its last album, Why Love Now, in 2017. Since then, it has performed sporadically without so much as a new single or even a reissue. What exactly is the band up to these days? Find out this Friday before they make their way to Austin for an SXSW-adjacent show on Saturday. Dallas punk band Sub-Sahara, who have also been quiet about what they're up to these days, will be there for local support, as will be Denton hardcore band Proxy.
Morbid Angel
6 p.m. Saturday, March 18, Amplified Live, 10261 Technology Blvd. E. $30+ at seetickets.us

Tampa death metal band Morbid Angel is celebrating 40 years of extreme music on its domestic Tour of Terror. The band is touring with only one original member, guitarist and keyboardist Trey Azagthoth, who has been Morbid Angel's primary composer these last four decades, bringing the music together with the help of over a dozen musicians across the band's tenure. Like that of many death metal bands, Morbid Angel's music has often been associated with satanism, occultism and other subjects seen as blasphemous by some — but that was only the band's early work. In the 21st century, the music has been more focused on Sumerian gods, the Roman Empire and the works of H.P. Lovecraft. The band has not released anything since 2017's Kingdoms Disdained, but its members have hinted that there has been something new in the works since 2019. Find out Saturday after sets from death metal bands Revocation, Skeletal Remains and Crypta.
Their/They're/There
6 p.m. Sunday, March 19, Andy's Bar, 122 N. Locust St., Denton. $15 at prekindle.com

In 2013, Chicago indie band Their/They're/There recorded nine songs on two EPs for two different record labels, making one of the boldest yet most eloquent musical statements in the history of math rock. Then they disappeared. No touring, no recording, no nothing for the better part of a decade. Until late August 2022, when the band released its third EP, followed two months later by its first full-length album. The two releases added another 14 songs to the band's short catalog, making its complete discography just over an hour long. Their/They're/There will be making its way back up to Chicago from SXSW when it stops in Denton on Sunday night. Their/They're/There will have opening support from New Jersey's Sweet Pill and North Texas's Skimp.
POWERWOLF
7 p.m. Monday, March 20, The Factory in Deep Ellum, 2713 Canton St. $39.50+ at axs.com

For two decades, German power metal band POWERWOLF has spread its werewolf-themed horror music across the European landscape. On Monday night, for the first time ever, the band brings its theatrical live show to Deep Ellum, less than one month after playing its first show in North America. The tour precedes the release of POWERWOLF's ninth album, Interludium, which is set for worldwide release on April 7 on Austria's Napalm Records. It's hard to say exactly why POWERWOLF waited so long to make an appeal to an American audience, especially when so many theatrical metal bands from overseas have done well here— like Scandanavian bands Nightwish, Ghost and Dimmu Borgir, to name a few. The band has a reputation in Europe for putting on an incredibly engaging live show, which they describe as a "heavy metal mass." Florida power metal band Seven Kingdoms opens the show.
Joan Osborne
7 p.m. Tuesday, March 21, The Kessler, 1230 W. Davis St. $38+ at prekindle.com

Joan Osborne's biggest moment on the national music scene came in 1995 when her ubiquitous song "One of Us" peaked at No. 4 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and became an international hit. The song sent her debut album, Relish, to No. 9 on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart. The album went triple platinum in the U.S., platinum in Canada, gold in England and Australia and was a top-20 album in four other countries. The album would also produce two minor hits, "St. Teresa" and "Right Hand Man," but Osborne would not see another hit single or have another album capture listeners quite like that one song on that one album. However, she has released 11 studio albums to date and is currently touring in support of her live compilation, Radio Waves, which is composed of live performances of many of her most famous songs and cover versions across several years on radio stations around the world. Osborne will have local support from singer-songwriter Remy Reilly.
The Zombies
7 p.m. Tuesday, March 21, House of Blues, 2200 N. Lamar St. $59.50+ at livenation.com

English rock band The Zombies made quite the impression on the music world in the late '60s. The band released the flawless album Odessey and Oracle in 1968, which often still finds its way on "all-time best albums" lists. Then, for a long, long time, that was it. Between 1969 and 1988, the band had all but broken up. The Zombies' original members came back together in the late '80s to record the album that would be 1990's New World, but it would be a full decade before the band would enter into its most prolific period. Sure, it may sound odd to call the past 23 years the band's most productive, but there have been five albums released since 2001 and only four albums released in the three decades before then. The Zombies have already released three songs from an upcoming album ahead of its Life Is a Merry-Go-Round Tour with singer-songwriter AJ Smith.
Cradle of Filth
6 p.m. Wednesday, March 22, Amplified Live, 10261 Technology Blvd. E. $35 at seetickets.us

English extreme metal band Cradle of Filth returns to Dallas Wednesday night, playing a co-headlining show with DevilDriver at Amplified Live on its Double Trouble Live tour. Drawing inspiration from Gothic poetry, mythology and horror films, Cradle of Filth has always had a penchant for the dramatic. While their performances make use of satanic imagery, the band has gotten more kids into Victorian literature than it has into devil-worshipping. California groove metal band DevilDriver is touring ahead of the release of its 10th album, Dealing with Demons Volume II, which is due out on May 12. This show is sure to showcase the nuances of metal music as each band brings wildly different interpretations of the genre to the stage. The co-headliners will have opening support from the woman-led, New York-based industrial metal band Black Satellite and Canadian progressive metal band Oni.
Elle King
7 p.m. Wednesday, March 22, The Factory in Deep Ellum, 2713 Canton St. $40+ at axs.com

Singer-songwriter Elle King pulls into Deep Ellum Wednesday night on her A-Freakin-Men Tour. King spent last year supporting her hit song “Drunk (And I Don’t Wanna Go Home)," which she recorded with Miranda Lambert. The single debuted at No. 1 on Billboard’s rock and country digital sales charts, making King the first female artist in history to have scored four No. 1 singles in four different formats in her career. Earlier this year, King released her long-awaited third album, Come Get Your Wife, which has been labeled a country album and has been making its way up the Billboard Top Country Album chart since its release. King's sound has always been hard to place, even while remaining familiar. Ranging somewhere between mid-tempo punkabilly and bluesy alt-country, King has shared the stage with acts as diverse as Dropkick Murphys and Ed Sheeran. This time around, Alabama Southern rock band Red Clay Strays opens for her.