Rock for grown-ups

Lorelei

With Hearts and Science and Life in Bed

Tonight, 7 p.m.

Club Cafe, $5

21+… Lorelei

With Hearts and Science and Life in Bed

Tonight, 7 p.m.

Club Cafe, $5

21+

Local black-clad rockers Lorelei will put on a no-frills performance tonight at Club Cafe’s Indie Rock Night. The band just released their straightforward LP, Our Minds Have Been Electrified, Jan. 21 on their own label, Ice-Made.

Lorelei, which consists of bassists/vocalists Susannah Mira and Dan Barone, and drummer Thad Kellstadt, got its start in the fall of 2000, converging in Pittsburgh from different locales and naming themselves after a mythological siren. The members started out by providing the musical score for Sarrogit, a Pittsburgh performance art group, whose members act as living sculptures in space at galleries around the neighborhood.

What sets Lorelei apart from your average local 3-piece with punk sensibilities is its minimal guitarless setup – the band plays only two basses and a set of drums. The brooding groan of basses with low, even vocals and mechanical-sounding drums and coupled with Lorelei’s dark outfits and sunglasses a la Velvet Underground, make for a striking overall effect.

But despite its members’ slightly spooky personas and industrial sound, Lorelei’s rock is strangely familiar and accessible. Lorelei doesn’t play screamy two-minute punk songs, but couldn’t be farther from a jam band.

Life In Bed, which consists of members of ex-Pittsburgh bands Manifold Splendor and Irwin ‘ Handle, play melodic guitar-based rock and plans to record new material this spring. The night’s other indie rock act, Hearts and Science, is a collaboration between members of local bands Boxstep, Lonely Planet Boy and Up the Sandbox. This group’s full lineup will offer narrative rock, sweetly complete with a violin.