There's reggae, there's dub, there's roots music, and then there's the undeniable energy that is Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad. The six-piece band, from Rochester, N.Y., graced the stage of The Middle East Upstairs on Sunday night.

Legendary Brooklyn experimental rock set Mercury Rev took to the stage of the Paradise on Friday night before a crowd as equally diverse in age as it was in energy. Luckily, to balance it out, the band played only one song. Or so it seemed, at least.

Tuesday marked the release of Britney Spears'' highly anticipated seventh album, Circus.' The album, a follow up to the hugely successful 2007 album Blackout, has Spears collaborating with producers Max Martin, Danja, Bloodshy & Avant and Rodney 'Darkchild' Jerkins, to name a few.

Before their performance at the Orpheum Theatre last Thursday, I got a chance to talk with Keith Murray, lead singer and guitarist of the duo, We Are Scientists, who are on tour with The Whigs and Kings of Leon.

Tea Leaf Green is a band constantly on the move. After playing over 400 shows all across the country in the past three years, rolling into Boston's Paradise Rock Club for a two-night stand this past Wednesday and Thursday must have felt like taking a long vacation from the road.

In a perfect world without the constraints of money and rules set by 'the Man,' Kevin Coffrin and his wily biker gang bros would be lying dead in some club, killed at the hands of murderous stripper zombies.

Conor Oberst and his Mystic Valley Band took to the stage at the Roxy on Nov. 5, playing to a packed house of hipsters-in-training, who awkwardly angled past each other to get inches closer to their indie god.

Swedish pop chanteuse Lykke Li took to the stage of the Paradise Rock Club Thursday night for an electrifying yet far-too brief set.

'Yeah, I'm that scumbag who drinks Heineken in McDonald's,' laughs The Bronx frontman Matt Caughthran as he whips out a half-empty can of beer from inside his jacket.

With her plastic neon bracelets and flirty mod minidress, Yelle boasts a fashion sense just as bright and punchy as the beats to her songs.

Not since the Spice Girls in the late '90s has a girl band been able to capture the hearts of American audiences quite like the British five-piece.

Take some riffs from Nirvana, mix in a dash of Kylie Minogue's glitter and run it through Daft Punk's decks and only then will you have a product that sounds remotely like anything on Walter Meego's debut album, Voyager.