Y’all aren’t an easy group to please so I’ve carefully brought together a mess of nattily dressed talents to woo you with a combination of name recognition and failure-ready descriptions. Feel free to refute my suppositions.

Dismiss Me With A Smile

Wild Beasts – With a band name like that you’d expect a group of greasy tattooed rockers, not this lot of Bronski Beat rejects with a lead singer that confidently jumps from high notes to low like some dude from Elbow. Jaunty, British, and up for immediate purchase when the release date rolls around.

Jack Penate – So the jaunty and British thing mentioned above translates here as well, with a disco bass for good measure. I found it to be quite ebullient in almost an African music kind of way, and not “Nothing But Flowers” (not that there’s anything wrong with Naked).

The Entrance Band – Bringing the proceedings to a screeching halt because how many us really enjoy energetic experiences anyway? Mewling vocals and 80’s guitar textures punctuate this slow building Baltimore area side project. Notice how I mention Baltimore once an update just to capture the attention of a certain listener?

Blue Roses – Already being feted as fantastic by those in the know, I continue to wait outside in a drizzle for the heater to kick in. Her voice takes that divisive Joanna Newsom style a step further to the left, mated with ‘authentic’ (read: reedy) production and period instruments that scream method over magic. Of course it’s all hidden and obscured on this somewhat palatable selection.

Joe Henry – OK, so I really enjoyed the early 90’s country version of Joe Henry and not the faux-meaningful aka impenetrable stuff from the mid-90’s. Good news is he’s coming down from that high solitude of the one-man mountain he perched hisself on, bad news is he stopped off to visit with Tom Waits. Still, any improvement should be noted in hopes of future gains.

Magnolia Electric Co. – The man is obsessed with Neil Young, we all certainly can observe that from his Songs: Ohia. At least it’s the good 70’s stuff, he hasn’t quite gotten to the Trans portion of the catalog yet. This one still has some fraying on the edge of the natty lapels, and that’s alright with me.

Samara Lubelski – Less is more when it comes to Ms. Lubelski, hushing her able vocals like Nico with proper training yet subtly layering in a wash a keyboards, backing vocals and bass to create a late night hey did the light behind that door just flicker mood.

Mew – Just because I feel like we should end with some production aided grandeur, here’s a band I’ve never gotten wandering into a moment I can relationally draw upon. Hopefully it’s not too Mars Volta nu-prog for y’all.