The Silos

In one configuration or another, The Silos have teetered along the abyss of fame since they broke into the national consciousness in 1987. By 1988, the band was Rolling Stone's "Best New American Band" on the strength of the classic album Cuba. But while The Silos were eagerly embraced by the emerging alternative-country movement, they always remained slightly off center stage. Their latest effort, the February release Come on Like the Fast Lane, is a pleasing mixture of fuzz-box guitar-driven pop tunes that rock hard, such as "Out of Our Way." While the band has gone through numerous personnel changes over 20 years and eight albums, the current lineup of Walter Salas-Humara, Drew Glackin and Konrad Meissner has been together through two albums now, and this contributes to a sure-handed ease. While rocking is their primary mode, it's the off-kilter tracks like the somber "Never Leaving" and "People Are Right," with its lap steel whine, that stick in the brain after the player stops, and the track "She's Kickass" will fit on every bar jukebox between Brownsville and Nome, Alaska. This show should contain all the guitar overdrive and hipster smartness of forgotten power-pop masters like The Plimsouls. And that's a good thing.