Siren Music Fest preview: Pains + Cymbals + Earl Greyhound + more

Saturday brings us the 10th Annual Siren Music Festival at Coney Island. One of the highlights (if not the best) of the free summer concerts in New York, it starts at 1:00 pm and goes for the next 8 hours. Among the featured bands this time around are some of the metro areas finest up and comers. Topping that group is the now veteran Pains Of Being Pure At Heart (in the top picture). Still riding the two year wave of critical acclaim and mass popularity, we can’t wait to hear a new song or two in their set. "Everything Is Happening Now," perhaps? The Screaming Females will be showcasing songs from their impending fourth album release, “Castle Talk”; we are looking forward to admire gifted guitarist Marissa shredding and sweating on stage – she is bound to be the focus of this dynamic act’s set.

Cymbals Eat Guitars (2nd pic) have an appealing sound that incorporates, at times, frantic guitar strumming, impassioned vocals, a variety of blended keyboards – moving from quiet passages to all out blustery jams – all within the same song. They have no apparent inhibitions about incorporating alternately noisy and/or atmospheric passages within their mostly traditional song structures. Earl Greyhound blend the sprawling song structures (and chops) of prog rockers with a Dead-head hippie mentality, producing something unique and entertaining. All of the above are must see shows. – Dave Cromwell