Lest there be any question about The Black Angels’ love for the Velvet Underground, the Austin, Texas, sextet not only named itself after the Velvet’s “Black Angel’s Death Song,” but also styled its logo after an iconic image of the Velvet’s one-time singer Nico. Black Angels are thusly lumped in with other VU revivalists like Brian Jonestown Massacre and Spacemen 3, but their newest album, Directions to See a Ghost, nonetheless stands out for its sheer commitment to traditional psychedelic rock: From the reverbheavy production to the droning organ, everything about the album sounds like it was recorded in a black-lit basement during the Vietnam War. They do a 9 p.m. show tonight at Mad Planet with Los Angeles openers The Warlocks, a group that mines similar territory, nodding to the Velvet Underground and Jesus & Mary Chain, but pushes their psychedelic freakouts in darker, more extreme directions.
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