The best concerts in NYC in April 2020

San Francisco's Deafheaven dips into black metal’s battle-tested playbook—rage-against-the-void screams and vein-popping blast beats—while boasting a distinctly blissed-out, dream-pop guitar palette.

Chicago rapper Cupcakke is best known for her extremely raunchy rhymes and one-liners, but recent albums like Eden have broadened her thematic (if not lyrical) horizons. Between quips about pussy and blue balls, Cupcakke promotes body positivity and yearns for romance that isn't confined to a bedroom. If you're a fan of Cardi B's quick-witted flow and don't mind a few graphic references to bodily fluids, this concert is for you.

Soccer Mommy is the stage name of singer-guitarist Sophie Allison. On her upcomnig sophomore album, Color Theory, she expands on the pop-infused stylings of late ’90s alt-rock that made her debut so effective: head-on emotional lyrics and a particularly affecting wistful melancholy.

This Norwegian singer-songwriter's zigzagging melodies sound as poetic as her lyrics. With the occasional hint of a bluesy vocal inflection or a vaguely hip-hop beat, her choral pop experimentalism meanders into all sorts of odd places that sound eerily familiar.

Massachusetts outfit Caspian inhabit that increasingly crowded realm in which metal overlaps with atmospheric post-rock, offering up narrative instrumentals that journey from quiet reverb-soaked dronescapes to bombastic climaxes as on their latest LP, On Circles.

Intense young English neofolk singer Laura Marling emerged from the celebrated London scene that gave us Mumford & Sons and Noah and the Whale and released her first album just days after her 18th birthday. Armed with a bigger sound and a bolder voice, Marling's recent work has made the case that her tunes are more timeless than they are old-fashioned.

This London producer—Sam Shepherd to his pals—produces cool, sometimes jazzy, always groovy music akin to a tighter, less patchworked Four Tet, and releases much of it on his own wondrous label, Eglo. His 2015 album, Elaenia, moved into more expansive, lush territories, which he recreated live with an 11-piece band. This year's follow-up, Crush, promises to deliver an "unhinged" rendering of his unique expansive sound.

Expect a dreamy dance party from this Swedish quartet, which pits the agile singing of Yukimi Nagano against a languid band with an electronic edge. The band celebrates the release of its first new record in three years, New Me, Same Us.

With releases such as Feed Me Weird Things and Hard Normal Daddy, from ’96 and ’97, respectively, U.K. producer Tom Jenkinson (a.k.a. Squarepusher) helped humanize the drum ’n’ bass genre, creating electronic music that breathed like primo jazz fusion. As his new LP, Be Up A Hello, demonstrates, Jenkinson is still committed to an aesthetic of giddy sensory overload, crafting beats that bleep and buzz like the world's tightest android jazz combo albeit with a much broader emotional spectrum.

Katie Crutchfield’s roots lie in the DIY punk scene, but via her solo project, Waxahatchee, she’s developed a talent for singer-songwriter fare that mixes confessional lyrics and irresistible hooks. Here she supports a new record, Saint Cloud, which follows her other recent albums in abandoning any ties with her initial lo-fi stylings in favor of a sparkling clean production sheen.