So things haven't been going your way: Mercury's in retrograde, and it's the return of Saturn? Well stop knocking on wood and throwing salt around --that won't solve a thing. Run, do not walk to your stereo: Dame Fate is coming out the speakers and your luck is about to change.

YALAN PAPILLONS (Miss May 66) plucks her bass and starts to sing as captivatingly as the siren song that lured sailors to their watery deaths. Yalan's voice takes you instead to a place where the grass is made of cashmere, and chocolate is free for the taking.

MELISSA FARRIS (Tuscadero, The Long Goodbye) creates a mood-altering tone with her guitar, which she credits to her long-time studies of the Song of the Great Blue Whale. When she taps into these ancient harmonies, she divines a sonic reprieve from the evils of the four walls of today.

SPECK BROWN'S (Thunderclaw) percussive beats maintain a soulful consistency, stringing the energies of the guitars, voice, and bass together. At many points during a Dame Fate therapy session, your heart and the drums might actually be beating in time.

JESSE QUITSLUND (Please, Capitol City Dusters, Vile Cherubs) rounds out the sound, wielding his Jaguar like a true psychedelic cowboy. Part wizard, part heathen, and all man, his ability to slow time with nothing more than reverb and a touch of tremolo once inspired Nobel Laureate Stephen Hawkins to call him "the baddest mothafucka I ever seen."

Individually their powers are formidable. Together they are beneficent, rewarding the faithful with a powerful mix of Mazzy Star, Leonard Cohen, Come, Spacemen Three, and Joy Division. Entrancing listeners with their sparse, stripped-down sound since they joined forces in 1999, Dame Fate continues to deliver the musical equivalent of three wishes. Dame Fate has shared the stage with such musicians as Dead Meadow, The Gossip, Cursive, Mary Timony, Q & Not U, Radio 4, Ari Up, Engine Down, Dismemberment Plan, Trans Am, Edith Frost, The For Carnation, Canyon, Songs: Ohia, Ben Lee, Bats & Mice, The Butchies, and Tsunami.