Music Forecast: City and Colour, Yes You Are, Half Moon Run, Whitey Morgan

City and Colour

Dallas Green begins his latest album, October’s If I Should Go Before You, with an epic nine-minute jam called “Woman.” It’s a slow-burning ode to his lady, and he delivers the grandiose professions of love — Woman, my love is neverending, like a sea without a shore — amid sizzling guitar lines, creating a post-apocalyptic soundscape that only his affections can withstand. He’s basically Sade with testicles. And though If I Should Go Before You is far from a love album — Green is far too preoccupied by the great overarching theme of mortality for that — it is this initial introduction that makes a lasting impression. Would that each of us were blessed with a partner who could write such convincing ballads in our honor.

Monday, January 25
The Midland, 1228 Main St.

Yes You Are, High Up, Drugs & Attics

We’re a little bit scared of Yes You Are. This dark power-pop band arrived on the scene in 2014 seemingly fully realized — thanks, in part, to indomitable force Kianna Alarid, former lead singer of Tilly and the Wall, who commands the stage with blinding ferocity. Now, the band is working on a debut EP. Also on deck: High Up, a throwback funk-soul act from Omaha (helmed by Christine Fink, whose powerhouse singing might give Sharon Jones a run for her money), and Drugs & Attics, which finds Yes You Are bassist Willie Jordan stepping into the role of lead singer and guitarist, for a spectacular turn at gritty doo-wop rock.

Friday, January 22

Riot Room, 4048 Broadway

Half Moon Run

In October, Half Moon Run released Sun Leads Me On, the long-awaited follow-up to 2012’s Dark Eyes. From the outset, the Montreal band seems to acknowledge the time it took to get to this album. In “Warmest Regards,” the sunshine-tinged opening track, lead singer Devon Portielje tells us, in a delicate falsetto: I wait and I wait to make a new start, a new beginning, but it feels like the end. The song sounds like a Levon Helm B-side, but Half Moon Run doesn’t really commit to straightforward Americana. The next song, “I Can’t Figure Out What’s Going On,” has the band evoking early-aughts Fleet Foxes. It’s a pretty (if not always cohesive) release, one we hope — despite Portielje’s lyrics — won’t be the last.

Monday, January 25

The Granada, 1020 Massachusetts, Lawrence

Whitey Morgan, Cody Jinks

Admit it: You probably don’t have enough honky tonk in your life. Whitey Morgan is in Lawrence on Friday to fix that for you. The Michigan singer-songwriter is on tour with his band, the ’78s, in support of Sonic Ranch. A good deal more twangy and country-fried than Sturgill Simpson with his crossover appeal, Morgan stays on the tried and true, whiskey-slicked dirt roads he knows well. It works for him, and Sonic Ranch sounds like instant classic country — the kind of thing you can slide between Waylon and Willie and your dad might not notice. Texas native Cody Jinks kicks things off with an acoustic set, which should give his outlaw country songs some extra weight.

Friday, January 22

The Granada, 1020 Massachusetts, Lawrence