Houses of the Unholy

Witchburn

Thu., 8:15pm, Dirty Dog Bar

Helming Seattle doom quartet Witchburn, lead sorceress Jamie Nova straddles whiskey-soaked Southern rock and punishing metal on 2013 sophomore effort Bathed in Blood, Ozzy Osbourne meets Lynyrd Skynyrd. Ponder witch burning on the delightfully morbid "Der Hexenhammer," half history lesson, half origin story. – Nina Hernandez

Cattle Decapitation

Fri., 2:50pm, Midway Field House

Cannibal vegans? San Diego animal rights activist Cattle Decapitation bolt throw humans rather than our bovine brethren via seething, screaming grindcore. Fifth Metal Blade amputee and seventh LP total, 2012's Monolith of Inhumanity crucified a catalog high with its flesh-stapling pummel and guttural bile. – Raoul Hernandez

Subrosa

Fri., 7:45pm, Emo's

Hailing from unlikely metal mecca Salt Lake City, there's nothing conservative about Subrosa. The quintet's art-damaged doom incorporates gothic melancholy, progressive atmospheres, and a startling indie folk thanks to Rebecca Vernon's guitar making room for a pair of violins. 2013's More Constant Than the Gods represents the essential document so far. – Michael Toland

Acid Witch

Sat., noon, Midway Field House

Seriously bad vibes reverberate from Acid Witch's unholy trinity of cheap drugs, horror gore, and satanic doom. This poisonous brew of death crunch and John Carpenter soundtracks (dubbed "Halloween metal") oozes out of Detroit, a city with even less to lose than these heshers. Hell's Headbangers houses a pair of LPs, the most recent of which is Stoned. – M.T.

Archspire

Sat., 12:45pm, Midway Field House

Sometimes technique for technique's sake is enough. Thus spaketh Archspire on latest LP The Lucid Collective, a whiplash set of tracks breaking fingers off air guitarists everywhere. Armed with a death grunt that makes grindcore vokillists sound articulate, Oliver Rae Aleron leads his Vancouver crew into new depths of musicianly brutality. – M.T.

Macabre

Sat., 3:15pm, Midway Field House

Macabre shares a serial killer obsession with Japan's Church of Misery, but that's where the similarities halt. The 29-year-old Chicago trio ignores its fellow traveler's teeth-grinding doom in favor of an eclectic mix of punk, classic metal, and children's music. Not for toddlers, but an appreciation of nursery rhymes will help grok latest release Grim Scary Tales. – M.T.

Napalm Death

Sat., 4:15pm, Midway Field House

At Fun Fun Fun Fest 2012, UK grindcore vets Napalm Death pulled from recent releases Utilitarian, The Code Is Red ... Long Live the Code, and Smear Campaign before closing with classics off Scum and Harmony Corruption. The stark dichotomy demonstrated that – despite 24 years' worth of line-up changes – the quartet hasn't atrophied one bit. They're still inconceivably fast, brutally chaotic, and gloriously angry. – Kevin Curtin

Author & Punisher

Sat., 8:15pm, Emo's

Engineer turned sculptor turned one-man sonic violator, Tristan Shone doesn't play self-designed instruments. He fights them, wears them, submits to them. Welcome to heavy industrial, in sound and structure, ripping apart the DJ as button-pressing buffoon, then reassembling the shards as a war machine of aural oppression. If Sunn O))) illuminates the universe, Shone is the last black hole engulfing everything. – R.W.

Neurosis

Sat., 9:20pm, Emo's

Neurosis essentially invented the sub-genre misleadingly called post-metal. The Oakland quintet's masterful blend of hardcore rage, art-rock dynamics, and doom metal inspired waves of imitators for nearly 30 years. 2012's excellent catalog addition, Honor Found in Decay, begs for jackhammering onstage. – M.T.

GWAR

Sat., 10:50pm, Emo's

Oderus Urungus isn't dead/ He's lost in space – perhaps smoking crack on the planet Scumdogia. In the wake of his human alias Dave Brockie's death in March, Richmond, Va.'s theatrical metal ensemble has enlisted two new vocalists, the tit-spraying Vulvatron and former bassist Beefcake the Mighty, returning as antler-and-uttered man-beast Blothar. Dispatches from the Hunt for Oderus Urungus tour report Brockie holograms. – K.C.

Gasmiasma

Sun., 12:45pm, Midway Field House

Little is known about NOLA's Gasmiasma outside of brief YouTube videos revealing frenzied bursts of screeching crustcore. And that this is Down bassist Patrick Bruders revisiting his bleeding amp roots. Look for Crashermangle, single greatest EP title in all of metal. – M.T.

Fulgora

Sun., 1:30pm, Midway Field House

This St. Louis nightmare is drummer Adam Jarvis, beat-keeper for Pig Destroyer and Misery Index, and guitarist/veinpopper B. L. LaMew. Too accessible for grindcore, too jagged for hardcore, and too intense for death metal, Fulgora fills up two Cricket Cemetery EPs that kick our cranium. – M.T.

Child Bite

Sun., 2:15pm, Midway Field House

Detroit rock city lives on in this fearsome foursome smooshing together post-punk and experimental metal via elbow-twisting riffs, trapezoidal rhythms, and Shawn Knight babbling like a junkhouse preacher. New EP Strange Waste serves as rap sheet next to the Phil Anselmo collaboration/Anal Cunt covers EP Morbid Hits, available on 5-inch vinyl. – M.T.

Corrections House

Sun., 3:15pm, Midway Field House

Eyehategod's Mike Williams on vocals, Neurosis' Scott Kelly on guitar, Bruce Lamont from Yakuza on baritone sax, and Minsk's Sanford Parker on beats. Their experimental treaty, first observed on 2013's Last City Zero, cycles between atmospheric drone, corrosive sludge, spoken word poetry, and scraping Brillo on mics – all in black uniforms. – K.C.

Samhain/Danzig

Sun., 10:30pm, Emo's

Drummer/bassists London May and Steve Zing, two original Samhains, appear after Danzig's set to celebrate the anniversary of 1984 debut Initium, seminal horrorcore following the death of its bandleader's previous groundbreakers, the Misfits. Hope they play "The Howl." – A.G.