Saturday is going to be a big day for Seattle music institutions in Tacoma. At Hell's Kitchen will be recently reunited alt-rock favorites, Satchel. Just a few blocks away at The Space will be Rusty Willoughby and Rachel Flotard's new project, Cobirds Unite.

Blocks away, sharing space in Pacific Northwest music history, but miles apart in sound and vision.

Formed in the early '90s, Satchel practiced a crunchy, occasionally fractured indie rock that spent as much time delivering grungy riffs as it did tasty grooves. Frontman Shawn Smith's vocals were suited for a number of different styles - capable of growling ferocity and smooth R&B crooning. Incorporating these disparate styles - in addition to the band's 1994 debut LP, EDC, being loosely based on the plot of Reservoir Dogs - made the band a legitimate oddity on the alternative rock scene. How strange it is to consider one of the more memorable soul songs (EDC album closer "Suffering") could come from a band that, at the time, was steeped in the grunge scene of early-1990s Seattle.

After EDC and its follow-up, 1996's piano-heavy Family, Satchel broke it off. It's uncommon for a band to call it quits after releasing two totally solid, critically acclaimed albums, but that's what Satchel did. That is, until the band reformed in 2009 and released a third album, Heartache & Honey, in early 2010. Lead single "The Return Of..." is a stomping, guitar-heavy rocker, a roaring proclamation of Satchel's resurgence.

And here, in the other corner, is Cobirds Unite. Headed by longtime Seattle rock fixture Rusty Willoughby, this new project is a far cry from Willoughby's earlier work, be it in the neo-psychedelic Pure Joy or the power-pop bliss of Flop. Cobirds Unite make alt-folk ruminations that call to mind lavender hour jam sessions on a country road - that moment just when the sun is about to fall from sight, and the temperature lowers to just below what's comfortable. They aren't downers, but they make no bones about the bad things that may or may not be around the corner. They're songs about the unpredictability of life and the fortitude it takes to meet these changes head-on.

Sharing vocal duties is Rachel Flotard, front woman of indie rock outfit Visqueen. Her close harmonies with Willoughby are essential to the impact of Cobirds Unite.

"(Willoughby) has been a songwriter that I've kind of been in love with for years and years and years," says Flotard. "I'm just so smitten with his melody and his words. And we just became kind of like Siamese twin singers. He and I have this really good sense of one another, and I'm able to follow his melody pretty well. ... Have you seen The Secret of NIMH?"

Yes, I have.

"OK, so, you know at the end of The Secret of NIMH," continues Flotard, "where the Dom DeLuise crow meets the girl Dom DeLuise crow and they take their little strings and they fly back and forth into the sunset and make this kind of loop? I know that's maybe the dumbest thing to compare it to, but that's what it feels like for me. Two black crows, flying together. That is the dumbest thing I've ever said."

I don't know if it's that dumb. I was thinking about how much I would like to learn how to make metaphors as good as that one.

It does make a kind of sense to me. In your sweetest fantasies, wouldn't you like to imagine the creative union between such talented people as a cartoon denouement in the sunset? Hand in hand, or string in beak, in perfect harmony.

What I mean to say, with all this rambling, is that you have quite a decision on your hands. Saturday night. Two black crows. A few blocks away, but miles apart.

Satchel

with Destruction Island, From the Sea, Chyeah Chyeah
Saturday, May 14, 9 p.m., $7
Hell's Kitchen, 928 Pacific Ave, Tacoma
253.759.6003

Cobirds Unite

With Goldfinch, Bryan John Appleby
Saturday, May 14, 8:30 p.m., $8-$10
The Space, 729 Court C, Tacoma