Welcome to Seven in Seven, where we look at shows coming to the region over the next week. As always, whether your musical tastes are rock ’n’ roll, jazz, heavy metal, R&B, singer-songwriter or indie, there will always be something to check out. Here are seven of the best on the docket for the week of May 15.
Zzzahara — Friday at The Foundry
Next month, on June 5 to be precise, Zzzahara’s latest album of melodic indie rock, “Distant Lands,” arrives. Ahead of the release, they’re playing a series of preview shows, which kick off Friday at The Foundry. The album from Eyedress/Simps/US Velvet guitarist Zahara Jaime under the Zzzahara moniker turns inward in a way that feels heavier and more personal than anything they’ve done before. Sparked by dreams about a brother they lost at 12, the record wrestles with distance in every sense, including family, grief, addiction, and memory, before it pulls away from the relationship-centered writing that defined a lot of their earlier work. There is still that haze and longing running through it all, but this time it’s filtered through opioid addiction, old wounds, and the uneasy realization that conflicting emotions can sit side by side without ever fully resolving.
Lorna Shore will take the stage on Saturday at Wind Creek Event Center. (Mike Elliot)
Lorna Shore — Saturday at Wind Creek Event Center
After dominating 2025 with their explosive new album, “I Feel the Everblack Festering Within Me,” and spending the early part of the year on tour in Europe, Lorna Shore return home with a string of headlining dates, including Saturday in Bethlehem. The New Jersey deathcore outfit has gone from outsiders to the more impressive extreme metal acts to emerge in recent memory, blowing up streaming numbers, tearing through massive tours, and building a fanbase that’s followed them every step into weirder and more ambitious territory. But none of that has softened the band. If anything, they’ve pushed harder, making music that feels overwhelming on purpose, constantly stretching what music in the genre can sound like instead of settling into what people expect from it.
Valentina Sounds — Saturday at The Fallser Club
Last week, Italian-born, Philly-based singer/songwriter Valentina Sounds released her sophomore effort, “What Keeps Me Alive.” To celebrate, she’ll be playing a hometown release show at the Fallser Club on Saturday. As a Homey Award winner for Best Female Solo Artist, the new LP sees Sounds delivering a deeply personal and emotionally expansive collection of songs written across five transformative years, capturing the experience of navigating uncertainty while redefining personal identity. The record intentionally unfolds in two contrasting sonic worlds: lush, full-band pop/rock arrangements alongside intimate piano-and-voice recordings.
Failure — Saturday at Arrow at Archer Music Hall and Sunday at Underground Arts
For a band so closely associated with weight, density, and mass, Failure have spent much of their career writing about what happens when those things fall away. Bodies drift. Memories fragment. Signals distort. Gravity fails. But even after three decades, the hugely influential trio are still following the sound wherever it leads, even when it’s uncomfortable, unfamiliar, or disruptive. “Location Lost,” the band’s seventh album and their fourth since improbably reuniting in 2014 after a 17-year hiatus, doesn’t arrive as a victory lap or a nostalgia exercise. Instead, it sounds like a band actively negotiating where — and who — they are now. Onstage though? There’s never been a question. It’s always intense and spellbinding.
The Amity Affliction + August Burns Red — Sunday at The Fillmore
The Amity Affliction didn’t choose emotional honesty as an affectation. It’s pure survival. The Australian melodic metalcore mavericks built a global following through passion, authenticity, and unflinching self-reflection. It’s no surprise that they’d have found co-headliners in August Burns Red, with their pit-stirring breakdowns, fist-in-the-air, singalong choruses, and chunky riffs. The Lancaster metalcore heroes speak directly to the frustrated and disaffected, serving as the powerful connective tissue between the band and its fans.
Davina & The Vagabonds — Sunday at Sellersville Theater 1894
Davina & The Vagabonds bring high-energy vintage music into the modern spotlight, blending jazz, blues, and soul with a flair that feels both timeless and fiercely alive. Led by powerhouse vocalist and pianist Davina Sowers, the band has built an international reputation for electrifying performances, razor-sharp musicianship, and undeniable charisma. The stop at Sellersville Theater is part of a tour where they will road test new material, as Sowers is currently working on the follow-up to her critically acclaimed 2024 release “Shoot for the Moon.”
Buckcherry — Tuesday at Archer Music Hall
Continuing to support their 11th album, “Roar like Thunder,” sleaze rock stalwarts Buckcherry bring their “Let It Roar” tour to Allentown. All the dates have been announced for the current tour, and the final leg makes it so this show will be the last time fans will have the chance to see them in the region. Openers are Scarhaven, the Washington, D.C., natives, now based in New York City, who have been dubbed a “grunge-revival” act and are beginning to make their own waves.
Soundcheck
• Zzzahara: “Speed Racer”
• Lorna Shore: “In Darkness”
• Valentine Sounds: “Story for Me”
• Failure: “A Way Down”
• The Amity Affliction: “Kickboxer”
• August Burns Red: “Sonic Salvation”
• Davina & The Vagabonds: “Pushpin”
• Buckcherry: “Ridin’”