The Arcade Fire

Nov. 14 at 7:30 p.m. with Horses and Racecar, at the First Unitarian Church, 2125 Chestnut Street, $8 / All Ages

If you’re sensing the burden of loss and musty disappointment hanging in the air, Montreal-based therapists The Arcade Fire want to intervene.

Their debut album “Funeral” offers a sympathetic voice through anthems with an epic appeal and a cathartic end. While, yes, most of their songs revolve around themes of death, they echo with hope’s reverb.

Take heart, all dissatisfaction and anxiousness dissipate in the swell of their strings, the victorious ding of glockenspiel, and in the resilience of Win Butler’s vocals, which sound like the articulation of a voice emerging after sobs so violent that they make no sound. On the album’s opening track Butler yelps Bowie-style “I hear you sing a golden hymn, the song I’ve been trying to sing.”

This Church show will be a counseling session for those who need accordion, jingle bells, and to pump a fist along with some fellow mourners who want to sing for you.

The Delgados

Nov. 15 at 8 p.m. with Crooked Fingers and Cynthia Mason with Larry G, at the First Unitarian Church, 2125 Chestnut Street, $10 / All Ages

Don’t be fooled: Scotland’s Delgados make dangerous pop music.

Their latest album “Universal Audio” proves that their kind of pop is delightful, but far from simple by way of complementary male and female vocals alongside snappy guitars and minute symphonies.

The danger lies in the hum-ability of their tunes which go from tragic to dainty in a single measure. Get manic depressive with them at this show if you can handle the humming for days that’s sure to follow.

Holly Golightly

Nov. 19 at 9 p.m. with The Woggles and Mondo Topless, at the Khyber, 56 S. 2nd St, $12, 21+

Whether covering the likes of the Kinks or Lee Hazlewood, or crooning brash tunes of her own creation, Holly Golightly (real name) colors every song she touches with her own cockney tincture.

Golightly is a former member of the seminal female British garage-revival group Thee Headcoatees, but her name has been further established thanks to her other 13 albums, released over the last nine years.

With a back-up band featuring the memorable rat-tat-tat of Bruce Brand on drums, commanded by Golightly’s smoky croon, this show is one not to be missed.