San Diego’s the Locust descend on New England this week with a plague of shrieking under-a-minute strokes of grindcore-strength guitar mayhem and synth spazz derived in equal parts from the ’90s Chicago no-wave revival, death metal, and Providence’s avant-sleaze/noise-punk scene. They’re joined by Providence freak magnets Arab on Radar for shows on Tuesday at the Met Café (401-272-5876) in Providence; on Wednesday at the Palladium (508-797-9696) in Worcester, and next Thursday, June 28, at the Garment District (617-876-5230, or 617-864-EAST), 200 Broadway in Cambridge. That last gig is the first show in a series of collaborations between the used-clothing emporium and the folks at Cambridge’s Middle East, who were looking for a joint that could handle all-ages gigs. Meanwhile, Skin Graft mainstays U.S. Maple unleash more chaos and disorder in support of their new Acre Thrills. On Saturday they’re at AS220 (401-831-9327) in Providence with the godfathers of the no-wave/new-wave hybrid, Six Finger Satellite, and Landed. On Sunday it’s U.S. Maple, Landed, and a newish, cultish Boston band called Common Cold at the Middle East (617-864-EAST) in Cambridge.

Young female singer-songwriters have been viewed as unrefined raw material for dance mavens since at least 1990, when a couple of British DJs called D.N.A. remixed Suzanne Vega’s a cappella fable " Tom’s Diner " into a club hit. But by the time Eminem sampled the Britfolk chanteuse Dido’s " Thank You " for his smash single and critical watershed, " Stan " (and heck, even by the time Vega released 99.9 Degrees), singer-songwriters were adding modernist electro-acoustic flourishes on their own. Which is to say that Eminem had a lot less work to do than did D.N.A.; and consequently the same ears that heard " Stan " will find plenty to like in the rest of the folkish trip-hop tunes from Dido’s No Angel. On Sunday, Dido headlines the Tweeter Center (617-931-2000) in Mansfield; she’ll also hit Meadows Music (860-548-7370) in Hartford on July 1. If you ask politely, openers Travis might play their Brit-rock version of Britney Spears’s " Hit Me Baby One More Time. "

Metal has gone a lot of places since 1986, but there’s still nothing quite like Slayer’s Reign in Blood. (We’re even bigger fans of their ’88 " sellout, " South of Heaven, but we’d never admit it.) On the eve of the release of their new God Hates Us All (Columbia, due July 10), they’ll blow Pantera off the stage on Saturday at the Worcester Centrum (617-931-2000), where old-school death-metal legends Morbid Angel, new-school sickos Skrape, and White Zombie clones Static-X are along for the ride.

Like, duh: both Aerosmith dates — at the Tweeter Center (617-931-2000) in Mansfield this Tuesday and next Thursday, June 26 and 28 — are sold out. Openers Fuel use the off night to headline their own gig at the Cape Cod Melody Tent (508-775-9100) in Hyannis.

Issue Date: June 21 - 28, 2001