Has large hair, check. Takes on weight of world, check.

“Let’s get a house/ you and me/ and your 12 cats,” sings Ron Gallo. “You’ll gird my mattress with nails/ one for/ every time something psycho came out of your mouth.” Remember Neil Young and Crazy Horse? Well, this is just like that fine garage band of old, minus, of course, the Horse and Mr. Young. “Young Lady, You’re Scaring Me” could be the B side to “Cinnamon Girl,” Young’s legendary tune released in ’69. The Ron Gallo power trio is all over those same wonderful vintage rock-and-roll guitar tones and chord progressions, and with drums that are played just a millisecond behind the beat so as to sound, well, vaguely stoned.

USA Today thinks you should pay attention to Gallo: they’ve listed him among their “Bands to Watch.” And Paste Magazine listed him in their “Philly Bands You Should Listen to Now.” Gallo was in a band called Toy Soldiers and as such has gone a couple of album-release cycles on various indie labels; still, he remains in that semi-unknown purgatory of an artist in search of the one song that will land him on the bigger stages.

So, who is Ron Gallo? “Just another millennial guy with large hair trying in earnest to take on the weight of the world,” he writes on his web page. “I straddle the fence between two mindsets: 1) the world is completely fucked, and 2) the universe is inside you.” He may be right on both counts, even though his youngish sentiments reek sometimes of the stuff you might hear during a coffeehouse poetry slam.

What elevates Gallo’s darkness from long-winded rambling is his music. That’s where he’s got it together: we all still need to rage, and we all still need to do that together, something Young and Crazy Horse and bands of that generation showed us to be true 40 years ago.

Naked Giants also play.