Not every review can be positive. Strike that—not every review should be positive. If journalism is meant to inform people’s decisions, as Eli Sanders put so simply in his Dean Stone Lecture on Thursday, then it needs to take  the good with the bad (insert Facts of Life theme song). Arts/music journalism is no different. For local or touring bands, if something doesn’t sound right then someone needs to sound the alarm and point out that there are other shows more worthy of a five dollar bill on a night where a choice exists.

These reviews are a week old but I have more to share come Thursday, so to sate your appetite: The overzealously “outlaw” country group from Bozeman, The Moustache Bandits, and yet another release from the noisy psych-punks Thee Oh Sees. I don’t think I was mean; I just couldn’t resonate with the misogyny of Bozeman’s jokers or the California noise-for-the-sake-of-noise that’s getting all too prevalent (more on that Thursday).

Let me also point you toward something a little more uplifting: