Beth Rowley | Wed 18 Jan | Glee Club | £12.50
Beth Rowley is one of those industry conundrums; a gothic folk-pop singer songwriter who keeps company with some big names, but has never broken through in her own right. Rowley’s music might be too subdued to scale the electrifying heights of her idols PJ Harvey or Duke Special, but her last EP ‘Wretched Body’ has a simmering gloom to it that recalls the similarly underrated Carina Round. Well worth discovering on a cold Wednesday night.

Tommy Emmanuel | Fri 20 Jan | Town Hall | SOLD OUT
The godfather of acoustic fingerstyle music, Tommy Emmanuel has been touring tirelessly since before you were born, probably. One man with the mystical guitar playing ability of four men, Emmanuel is unabashedly earnest, geeky, and phenomenally talented. Bending blues, jazz and folk tunes to his will, he turns pretty much anything he touches into gold. Although the guitarist’s guitarist, we imagine he’s made a lot of musicians quit in despair.

Dillinger Escape Plan | Sun 22 Jan | O2 Institute | £15.00
This could be the last Dillinger show in Birmingham, as the band is calling it a day after a final, gut-busting tour. The benevolent(ish) overlords of progressive, extreme music – sucking in hardcore, punk, metal, jazz and bent circuitboards like a vast collapsing sun – DEP have defied categorisation from birth. This year’s ‘Dissociation’ LP caps an untarnished legacy of chaotic dissonance that few acts can come close to. See our full preview here.

Girl Band | Sun 22 Jan | Hare & Hounds | £10
A raucous, guttural sledgehammer blast awaits those who venture into the Hare & Hounds on Sunday night; Girl Band’s debut Birmingham performance promises to be a bizarre experience, bordering on PTSD-inducing. Constructed out of Dope Body-like guitar fragments and Dara Kiely’s hoarse wails, Girl Band’s music is built on relentless repetition and the strong stench of doom, like a man trying to dig his way out of a water-filled pit. See our full preview here.