While the weeks leading up to Passover break may be an explosion of tests and papers in students' lives, the next couple of weeks will also bear witness to a number of Boston-area spring concert tour stops. The rock and indie luminaries and buzz bands will converge on a couple of local venues. With the demolition of the Avalon and the Axis to create a House of Blues-owned superclub expected to open by the end of the year, Boston's Paradise Lounge and Cambridge's Middle East venues seem to have major concerts booked every day from the beginning of April.The Middle East, as usual, seems to have cornered the indie market; cool kids VHS or Beta (April 7) and buzz band Pissed Jeans (April 12) are a couple of the venue's offerings next week. One lesser-known band playing the venue, however, deserves special attention. Scott Reitherman, who performs with a group of musicians as Throw Me the Statue, will make a stop at the Middle East April 8 with local singer Casey Dienel, who similarly performs under an unusual name, White Hinterland.

Though Reitherman's been recording since 2004, the group only signed to a national label (the Bloomington, Ind.-based Secretly Canadian Records) at the end of 2007. Since then, however, the label has been intensely promoting TMTS' first album, Moonbeams, with considerable results in that barometer of indie music, the blogosphere.

And for good reason, too. Reitherman's music takes the interesting-guy-with-a-guitar formula and adds on samples, synth and other exotic sounds. Songs like "About to Walk," the album's highlight, achieve that delicate partnership of nonsensical lyrics and driving melody that makes certain songs absolutely infectious despite the inscrutable meaning or non-meaning contained within. Words like "Favorite space is a palindrome/Where I talk in a cannonball/And I never have to share/And where nobody can see" may not look so good on the page, but coming out of laptop's speakers, they'll have you dancing in your seat.

"Now [we're] a five-piece, so it's much more full-bodied, and there's a lot of dynamic switching of instruments," said Reitherman of his live show in an interview with the Justice. "It's [a] much more high-energy thing live than it is on record. We're really psyched to be playing the Middle East. It's a venue we've heard a lot about, but we've never played there."

Brandeis, too, will play host to some excellent bands next week. On Sunday April 6, the WBRS/Student Events-sponsored Springfest will feature indie rock band Minus the Bear, ska act The Pietasters, hip-hop group Jedi Mind Tricks and headliner State Radio. Later in the evening, the Punk, Rock n' Roll Club will host a students-only performance by indie singer-songwriter John Vanderslice, fresh from his tour with Pavement founder and elder statesman of Gen-X culture Stephen Malkmus. The tour will stop at the Paradise on Thursday, April 3.

Other shows at the Paradise this month include the inventive solo guitarist Kaki King (April 5) and the easily confused indie rock bands gone mainstream Nada Surf (with The Jealous Girlfriends and The Minus Scale,April 10) and Rogue Wave (with Grand Ole Party, April 11).

Between the Middle East's extensive menu of indie performances and the Paradise's more diverse lineup of better-known artists, the Boston area should prepare itself for an influx of top-level musical acts. Start on those papers now, music fans, because there's way too much going on this weekend to get those pages done by Monday.