You won’t want to miss these Vegas acts in 2017

Psychedelic rock at its best tends to be alternately anesthetizing and jarring, conjuring moods only to disrupt them.

Think about one of those Cialis commercials where a couple is relaxing in adjacent bathtubs in some idyllic setting where bathtubs are never, ever found.

Now imagine a pair of toasters being plunged into said tubs.

It’s kind of like the rock ’n’ roll version of that.

Though they’ve been around less than a year, Vegas’ Acid Sisters have already gotten this duality down.

With buzzing amps and drips of reverbed guitar, droning synth and singer Elayna Thompson’s etherizing vocals, Acid Sisters can lull listeners into a near-meditative state, at times.

But Thompson can wail when she’s so inclined, and the Sisters follow suit, purposefully breaking the spell they’ve cast with everyone jamming hard in unison.

Acid Sisters have put out but one tune thus far, the recently released “Sci-Fi or Die,” but that combined with 10 months of better and better gigs make them one of the up-and-coming Vegas acts we’re most anticipating hearing more from in 2017.

Here are a few others:

Brett Vee

For a fellow adept at shrieking as if his tonsils were on fire and he was trying to expel them from his throat in order to set your face ablaze, Brett Vee sure can carry a tune. Up to this point, Vee has mostly distinguished himself as one-half of power-violence duo God’s America, a band that’s the musical equivalent of one of those places where you pay to smash stuff to blow off steam. But Vee’s long professed a taste for the sonic inverse of that band: pop punk. Now, it’s one thing to dig something. It’s another thing entirely to actually be able to pull it off, which Vee does convincingly on his most recent solo release, “Real Soon,” an EP of open-throttle power pop ranging from the Ramones-y (“My Boss, Spike Jonze”) to “Nuggets”-era garage rock singalongs (“Now That You’re Gone”). Turns out, Vee is as handy with melody as misanthropy.

Slump Lords

Rap is Fun doubles as both the name and mission statement of one of Vegas’ finest and, yes, most fun hip-hop collectives. Slump Lords, a pairing of scene veteran Omino Jakku and producer Phil A., is another promising addition to the Rap is Fun ranks, alongside the likes of Astro Blunt, Late for Dinner and Hassan Hamilton. In general, Phil A. tends to favor a vintage soul backdrop and/or a hard jazz swing via triumphant-sounding horns and majestic strings, an ideal bedrock to his and Jakku’s bouncy, punchy rhymes. Slump Lords have released two singles thus far, the equally breezy and biting “RN RN,” and “Mighty Slump,” a collaboration with the aforementioned Astro Blunt. In defiance of their name, Slump already has a bit of a winning streak going on.

DIRT CITY 3

Down a rabbit hole of distortion Timothy Styles has plunged. When Styles fronted rockers Skorchamenza back in the day, he was known for sporting feather boas, ripping “Guitar Hero” leads and doing his best to cheese off any indie rock prudes with over-the-top, table climbing ’tude at the band’s live gigs. Since those days, though, Styles has gotten increasingly grittier, his guitar playing more stripped down and rabid-sounding, as evidenced by his solo output on his aptly titled Fuzzwar Records Bandcamp page. And Styles’ latest project, Dirt City 3, may prove to be his most rancorous yet. Joined by drummer John Barrow and current Big Friendly Corporation bassist/former Skorcha drummer Brandon Johnson, Styles promises “lots of fuzz, reverb, sassiness, etc.” The band’s first gig is January 14 at the Golden Tiki. Hope Santa brought you some protective earplugs.

Plague Doctor/Commonear

When does a baseball bat cease to be a baseball bat? When it becomes a useful metaphor for the way in which these dudes wield their instruments. Now, we’re not lumping Plague Doctor and Commonear together to suggest that they sound the same — they don’t — but because both are standouts in Vegas’ small, but strong doom metal scene. The former favors riffs heavy enough to test the load capacity of an earth mover, resulting in some seriously punishing grooves, while the latter enhances soot-black sludge metal with touches of atmospheric indie rock. They both play a fair amount of house shows together, and, frankly, it’s a testament to architectural soundness that any of said houses are still standing.

Read more from Jason Bracelin at reviewjournal.com. Contact him at jbracelin@reviewjournal.com and follow @JasonBracelin on Twitter.