Dance dance dance the night away. Boytoy’s Grackle bursts with familiar rock & roll abandon fueled by coming to grips with unrequited love, twisting its hips eternally at that moment when you decide to quit trying to smother that cold shoulder in unseasonal sweaters. The Brooklyn trio tripped up snooty critics with their self-titled debut EP last year, causing respected pubs from Rolling Stone to Noisey to gush on loop. There’s some hippie folklore behind the new album’s title, but thankfully that vein is only tapped in name, smirking to point out that grackles – small, mostly black birds that have that tinged oil-stained sheen – outnumber music fans at SXSW each year. So quit being a bird-brain and note that this is a band worth discovering, and join their growing brood if you like fiercely easy, hooky rock. You’ll find yourself groaning along to tracks like “Your Girl,” admitting it’s true, “can’t help liking you.”
Boytoy with the Atom Age, the Areolas, Timothy Eerie | 10 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 18 | Will’s Pub, 1042 N. Mills Ave. | willspub.org | $7