The angst that permeates Canon Canyon’s music—that intense feeling of combined confusion and curiosity on songs like “Travelin’ Souls”—is unapologetic. Lead singer Michael Cooper isn’t pulling punches, and he’s not using flowery language to describe the trouble with growing up. And he means really growing up: that point where all of sudden you’re in your mid-twenties, you’re supposed to know who you are, but nothing and no one has turned out how you expected. “The friends you used to love, turn into people you used to know. We’re going down different paths, down two different roads,” Cooper sings in his deep voice. It makes sense that the band, which hails from Tacoma, mimics the darker, REM-style alt rock that from the 1990s. Back then, there were fewer high-pitched, young boys grabbing guitars and broadcasting their teenage troubles. Canon Canyon’s been through enough to know better than to warble about teen woes. It’s the worries of adulthood that plague them. With Themes, James Apollo.

Wed., Sept. 2, 9 p.m., 2009