Heroic Doses

Back in the mid-'90s, hipsters across America received a jolt when they encountered 5ive Style, a band primarily known outside Chicago as a Tortoise offshoot featuring drummer John Herndon. Instead of cool jazzy post-rock, they got a heavy dose of Billy Dolan's swaggering guitar riffing. Sounding like a cross between the Meters and Presence-era Led Zeppelin, the members of the quartet only recorded one album and a blistering single before going their separate ways. Dolan then cranked up the rock a few notches with Heroic Doses, featuring Euphone's Ryan Rapsys. They, too, only produced one album before 5ive Style regrouped for 1999's Miniature Portraits.

Then Dolan dropped out of sight. Rumors abounded—that he'd moved to New York, or that he'd joined ex-members of Sunny Day Real Estate in the Fire Theft—but his six-string heroics were in short supply for a few years. Luckily that's changing, beginning with this show at the Hideout. As-yet unreleased songs, recorded with drummer William Goldsmith (SDRE, Foo Fighters), show that the Rockford native hasn't been slacking off. With his always-inventive guitar leading the way, the instrumental tunes rock hard and funky, reminiscent of late-period Hendrix (although the guitar is sometimes a little too restrained, evoking the unfinished tracks where Hendrix died before recording his vocals).

As Heroic Doses, with the always impressive Rapsys manning the drum kit and Karl Ropp on bass, the group will mostly feature Dolan's new material, with a few choice nuggets from his back catalog. While the era of the guitar hero may have ended long ago, it's exhilarating to hear someone play with such fluidity and conviction, and have such a good forum in which to do it.—Ben Taylor