[ rock/pop ]

Hard to believe it's been a decade since The Darkness first splashed down, troubling the irony-is-dead waters of the early '00s with their zebra-print spandex cat suits and polished-chrome riffage — and swiftly nullifying any questions of taste through sheer anthemic bombast (not to mention the sky-high falsetto lunacy of Justin Hawkins' self-professed "truth larynx") on power-ballad paragon "Love Is Only a Feeling" and the still-deathless "I Believe in a Thing Called Love." They'd long since splintered into a pair of pale but worthy spinoffs — Hawkins' Hot Leg, the other guys' Stone Gods — but the boys are back together again and ready to rock us. Meanwhile, across the pond, Cincinnati's Foxy Shazam have been gunning hard to perfect their own brand of reverently righteous heavy-glam excess; several promising albums in, their new, all-killer, Hawkins-produced Church of Rock and Roll (I.R.S.) hits it out of the park. Freddie Mercury would be very proud.

Tue., Feb. 7, 8 p.m., $25-$27, all ages, with Crown Jewel Defense, The Trocadero, 1003 Arch St., 877-435-9849, thetroc.com.