On their new album Tombstone Bullets, The Cavalier Crooks have produced an album that grabs hold with dusty, writhing fingers, and won't let go. It's rare to find a band that manages to wholly inhabit a different degree than the masses, and even rarer to find one that makes music in that place that's enjoyable.

Production and genre-labeling aside, Tombstone Bullets reeks of a band who longs for a return to the South, thrust in '70s rock, almost reminiscent of Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous.

​Circle of Heat provide an intelligent alternative to mindless jamming. These four University of Minnesota music department products are celebrating the release of a self-titled album tonight at Bunker's, and the results should be filled with interstellar keyboard and guitar duels. Drawing as much from Frank Zappa's Freak Out! as they do from classical jazz, each track is loaded with instrumental gymnastics.

"We all had three years of college experience playing in chamber ensembles, symphonies, bands, and choirs before we formed, so we were able to utilize the rehearsal and performance techniques we learned in school," says guitarist Tom Alane. "This gave us a huge leg up, in that we knew we wanted to sound tight and rehearsed before we played live."