The faint of heart (and/or ear) should avoid at all costs Rough Trade on the eve of Saturday January 12th, since three loud and aggressive local bands will grace the venue's stage in quick succession starting at 9pm. Headliners Bambara have refined their gloomy psych rock in ever-darker and tenser directions with their latest two full lengths, while sludge rockers A Deer A Horse will be a worthy opener, sharing those same traits minus the psychedelic ingredient. Opener Gnarcissist will bring to the stage a more traditional (and fun) DIY punk with a markedly drunk and chaotic attitude. Tickets are on sale here, check out a playlist of vidoes below.

Brooklyn sludge trio A Deer A Horse let listeners read between the lines on their new single, “Double Wide” (streaming). The track is a heavy-leaded five minute foray into a scene with sparse details, yet every meticulously-chosen word creates an atmosphere of oncoming dread, each detail growled by vocalist and bassist Angela Phillips a Chekhovian set piece of extreme importance.

The elements described by Phillips on “Double Wide” - a knot, a shut door, the experience of meeting god - they all compose a tableau of possible final thoughts by a family member of Phillips, who several years ago took his own life. The bleak realness of the track is difficult to confront as a listener, but according to Phillips, the process of writing and performing “Double Wide” allows her relative’s passing to make “more sense, and it becomes a little easier to heal.” A trial by fire of emotional endurance and survival, “Double Wide” is a difficult track to consume, but the raw truth that informs its inception makes it necessary, important listening. -Connor Beckett McInerney (@b_ck_tt), Photo by Kirsten Theon (@daggers_for_eyes)

A Deer A Horse has a penchant for tearing through the tidy lines separating genres with reckless abandon, and on their latest EP release, Backswimmer, the Brooklyn-based threepiece fuses together styles and feels with the might of an atom smasher.  Sludgy, doom metal riffs, meet angular, dissonant melody lines, and are paired with deep, bewitching female-led vocals, that are set against a rotation of primative tom-toms, and indie-rock beats. Take all of this and consider that--somehow--the band manages to showcase strong hook-writing chops and pop sensibility. A Deer A Horse is schizo-rock at its absolute finest and their EP is an aggresive, blistering mind-meld that we can't get enough of. Check out the band's title track streaming below, and see them live at St. Vitus 5/1 alongside Dad, Darkwing, My Heart and the Real World, and Samantha Noise. - Olivia Sisinni

Nobody in the music scene likes to be called a "veteran" - it implies loss of youth, in a youth obsessed field - but it's undeniable that bands surviving in the Big Apple for 5+ years are rare and should be honored with a title... what about "Pillars of the NYC Scene"? There will be four of them performing at Shea Stadium this Saturday May 7th:  Parlor Tricks, Starlight Girls, Not Blood Paint, and A Deer A Horse (pictured). Check out their latest releases below.