Coliseum

Mellowness might be anathema to Louisville's Coliseum, judging by its reckless velocity and nihilistic harangues. "My lungs are filled with fumes...There's no air in this city/I need something pure," sings Ryan Patterson on 2004's "This Mind Locked Inside This Body." The band's anti-authority lyrics and relentless backbeat qualify it as punk enough to open for Rancid (at Pop's this June), and it occasionally unleashes the sort of reverberating sludge riffs that make metal stoners swoon. But Coliseum is essentially a hard-rock band, with Patterson conjuring Motörhead (with his Lemmy-like death-wheeze vocals) and Mötley Crüe (with his sleazy/flashy Mick Mars-style solos).