Marah

Life Is a Problem, Marah’s tenth album, is full of the band’s familiar mores, which include bashing, well-thumbed rockers, hearty folk and roots threads, and stumbles toward choruses that flare like cigarettes lingering on lower lips. But it’s full of the new, too. It’s Marah’s first release through their own Valley Farm imprint, and the first without Serge Bielanko as co-leader. That leaves space for Dave Bielanko and triple-threat Christine Smith (she sings, she plays piano, she plays the accordion!) to expand once again on what it means to be the best/last/only bar band in America, and how that’ll kind of fuck up your world view.

Fri., Aug. 20, 8 p.m.; Sat., Aug. 21, 8 p.m., 2010