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Since releasing its excellent album There Is Nothing To Fear last year, The North Country has refined and reworked its folk/indie/country sound through several lineup changes, but the end product, frontman Andrew Grossman’s vibrant songwriting, hasn’t changed. At every show, he charges ecstatically into each chord, singing songs that channel an existentially barren yet strangely hopeful approach to living and working as an artist in today’s D.C. The music shifts, often dramatically, from grand and epochal to soft and tender—an outcome driven more by melodic passion than strict calculation. Philadelphia-based band My Son Bison approaches folk music from an earlier era, using an upright bass and choppy rhythms that hang out in the front of its songs, with pickings from a 12-string guitar and echoing harmonies. D.C.’s own “Prince of Darkness” Sean Barna opens the show with his aching songs about drugs and death, presented with an eagerness and affection that’s sorely missing in the local music scene. The North Country performs with My Son Bison and Sean Barna at 10 p.m. at Comet Ping Pong, 5037 Connecticut Ave. NW. $12. (202) 364-0404. cometpingpong.com.