We’re Up To No Good, We’re Up To No Good is a rock-by-numbers release that feels more like an exercise in historical knowledge than a performance worth noting. (It’s also worth noting that their title is an accurate description of their work on this album.) As if going down a checklist, Rory has the shrill punk of My Chemical Romance, the odd techno-paranoia of Radiohead, the myriad rock influences of decades of jamming, and a little bit of dabble here and there. But it never comes together to make an album: it’s the parts alone, not their sum. This actually makes Rory’s release more frustrating than the worthless exhortations of other raging bands. You'll undoubtedly find something you like on this wildly eclectic album, but you'll just as assuredly lose it again in a stream of non sequiturs. The fifteen-minute finale, “Everybody Stabbed Me and it Didn’t Even Hurt,” shows where Rory goes wrong: they’re so busy jumping from style to style that they lose the listener. Imagine Pynchon as a composer: one moment, the oxymoronic sound of acoustic electrics; the next, sonic distortions by way of Mars Volta and other psychedelic pluckers. Just when you hit a stretch of sweet violins overlapping jagged licks, the vocals come in (“Wake up to the buzzards”) and just as you’re getting accustomed to that hard rock chorus (“There’s nothing you can’t do now/you’re snake eyes”) there’s a downshift into syncopated 80s rock. If music is a journey, Rory's lyrics are less guideposts than false directions from the sort of people who bite their thumb at tourists. Ha-ha, goes the music, made you listen. By this point, caught in the death knell of a surging instrumental break (“Free Bird,” anyone?), there’s a sudden glimmer of hope from a brass section, enough to make you think that angels play a mean sax, not harps—but wait, you’re still in a cacophonous hell. This Pollock-like playing--a splattering of talent in a market that looks for solid colors--is wasted time. [www.roryrock.com]

"We're the boys jailed in a horse's skull/We nailed our ears to a feral glittery drone" That opening lyric from "We Ride Skeletal Lightning" perfectly describes Seattle's Blood Brothers, who let out the most exciting and frightening scream of punk rock since the phrase was coined. Their new album Young Machetes, could change your life, but maybe not for the better. It's a relentless letter from a modern inferno, without remorse and without hope. The dual-assault vocals of Jordan Billie and Johnny Whitney go from beautiful Jeff Buckley-ish airs to absolute screaming insanity. And the writing is hellishly brilliant. Lyrics on the order of "the sky's so desolate like flesh on a skull-shaped balloon" and "waterfalls fall like intestines from flying gutted gulls" expose the pretentious inanity of death metal posers who have never even set a toe in the grave. The Blood Brothers are up to their neck in it. But it is not all shrieking entrails. "Lift the Veil, Kiss the Tank" is an anti-war song straight from a blown-out trench. The chorus goes: "War never ends / war never begins / hoist up the hag of destitution!/his mouth's an empty room where wild woes wander/ young machetes in lingerie charm us all into a frenzy/ his mouth's an empty hole full of quadriplegics." Ain't it the bloody truth? [www.thebloodbrothers.com]

If, after listening to a album, you cannot remember any of the songs, the album is a bad one. Jeremy Enigk’s World Waits is an easy listen, with pleasant arrangements and some decent singing, but it is about the most unmemorable thing I have heard in 2006. All I have taken away from a dozen listens is the notion that there are better ways of paying homage to The Beatles than emulating ELO. In fact, the only things that stick in my mind are the passages that have been lifted from other bands, most of them purveyors of late '70s arena rock. Enigk is like The Flaming Lips without the fun. He is so self-serious and introverted that it is near impossible to pry oneself into his tin-can head. His vagueness has an appeal, but the emptiness of his world is ultimately a bore. When you have a great band, as Enigk did in the '90s as the frontman of Sunny Day Real Estate, the sonic appeal can offset the shortcomings of the songcraft. Alone, albeit with an arsenel of hired hands, he performs with the low-energy intensity of a poser who is frightened the world will find out he has nothing to say. [www.myspace.com]

What could be cooler than three cute girls singing bossa nova versions of '80s songs? The second release from Nouvelle Vague, Bande a Part (named for one of the French new waver Jean Luc Godard’s better films) opens with two hot covers: "The Killing Moon" (Echo and the Bunnymen) and "Ever Fallen In Love" (Buzzcocks). After this, things get a little mundane, with tiresome renditions of songs that weren’t that good to begin with. People with nostalgic ties to that era should enjoy the whole record, but others may lose patience with novelty songs such as “Human Fly” (The Cramps) and “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” (Bauhaus). French singers Melanie Pain and Marina are the reason to listen to the album. Their accents are so cute and they sing with an exhuberant sense of fun. Australia’s Phoebe Killdeer is comparatively flat, and Gerald Toto’s masculination of “Heart of Glass’ sounds like an out-take from Caetano Veloso's "A Foreign Sound," his 2004 collection of American cover songs. [www.myspace.com]

Dubbed a supergroup due to the success and stature each of its members have earned with their full-time projects, Golden Smog has managed to remain relatively free of the bluster and hype normally associated with such collectives. Examining the band’s makeup and approach to their partnership gives insight into their ability to collaborate without needless pretension. Having seen members come and go over the life of the band, Golden Smog’s current lineup features components of Wilco (Jeff Tweedy), Soul Asylum (Dan Murphy), The Jayhawks (Gary Louris and Marc Perlman) and Run Westy Run (Kraig Jarret Johnson). Fortunately for the nature of the project, each of the group’s members comes from critically recognized Midwestern bands, their own music devoid of raging bravado or fashionable gimmick. The accomplishment of these musicians also allows the group to refrain from taking Golden Smog too seriously. The band exhibits a playful attitude without appearing careless or lazy. As such, the group’s fourth project is a loose assembly of well-written songs that often bear little resemblance to each other. Tweedy may be the band’s marquee personality but on Another Fine Day, Golden Smog’s other members get the lion share of the spotlight. Each performer lends a distinctive voice and style to the songs they front. Johnson’s tracks tend to gravitate towards retro-styled, Beatlesque pop, Murphy’s leads are more patently rock and roll (with the exception of the sublime, horn-saturated “Never Felt Before”) while Louris bridges the gap between straightforward pop/rock and more experimental stylings. Though Tweedy co-wrote just two tracks, “Long Time Ago”, his uncharacteristically sentimental collaboration with Louris, is one of the album’s highlights. Though the transitioning between styles gets a bit wearisome after fifteen tracks, Another Fine Day features a number of enjoyable songs as well as excellent harmonic interplay between the vocalists. This album is not a watershed musical moment for any performer involved, but it’s not meant to be. It fulfills its purpose well and fans of each band represented will likely take pleasure in the way the album casts a new light on some of their favorite songwriters. [www.goldensmog.com]

From the first strains of rollicking opener “Down Home Girl” (in which the band describes a girl whose kisses taste of pork & beans), Old Crow Medicine Show serves up notice that their second album for the Nettwerk label will be a unique and free-wheeling breath of fresh air. Trafficking in both contemporary folk and traditional bluegrass sounds, the Nashville-based ensemble display an abundant, infectious energy and an ear for musical nuance, the combination of which yields winning results. Whether reinterpreting standards or contributing new material to a wealthy canon of Americana classics, both the band and producer David Rawlings add their indelible touch to every song, allowing each of the twelve tracks on Big Iron World to sound inspired. Many of the album’s memorable moments are derived from lively tracks with lyrics that are witty, clever and often retain a sense of irony. For example, the group’s arrangement of the traditional “Cocaine Habit” proves a tongue-in-cheek tribute to the powdery drug and even suggests a few modern-day celebrities that may have benefited from its effects. The original “Virginia Creeper” shuffles along delightfully, utilizing banjo, harmonica and rich vocal harmonies as the band seems to revel in their own clever innuendo. Other up-tempo gems include “Minglewood Blues” and an electrifying rendition of Woody Guthrie’s “Union Maid.” The spirit evidenced by the band throughout is seen, albeit in a subtler, more focused way during the album's few ballads. “My Good Gal” is a beautiful, harmonica-drenched lament about a woman the narrator admits missing even though she “ain’t no good to me….she makes true love more like misery.” The band is also able to seize the emotion in songs like “James River Blues” and “Don’t Ride That Horse” without betraying the personality developed in their more detached songs. Big Iron World will certainly appeal to those pre-disposed to enjoying both the traditional and contemporary artists of bluegrass, folk and blues. The album deserves a wider audience, however, and has much to offer those willing to forego preconceived stylistic notions and discover the soul possessed by Old Crow Medicine Show. [www.crowmedicine.com]

At 25, Ben Kweller is a music industry veteran, having secured a record deal in his teens with the band Radish and releasing three solo albums since 2002. Though his songs still retain a boyish charm and innocence, containing lyrics like “When you sleep at night I’ll kiss you between your eyes”, the maturity of Kweller’s musical approach belies his eternally fresh-faced appearance. As he has honed his songwriting craft, Kweller has achieved a gold standard of marrying carefree hooks with an indie rock aesthetic that blends sonic elements of slacker icons like Weezer and Pavement without sounding derivative. With the aid of producer Gil Norton (Counting Crows, Pixies, Foo Fighters), Kweller has continued his streak of releasing albums full of memorably melodic songs. Early tracks like “Run” and “Sundress” (one of my favorite singles of 2006) have pop perfection written all over them and feel Beatles-esque at times, buoyantly expressing sentiments of heartfelt affection like “Over hills, over dales I’ll run with you” and “I do everything you want me to.” Kweller continues to grow in his ability to express the depth and breadth of his experiences through his music on tracks like the solemn “Thirteen” and “Penny on the Train Track” which employs a late '60s rock vibe. The acoustic strum of “Red Eye” allows Kweller to mix elements of soulful pop and country swing while he mournfully asks, “How long will it take ‘til I can have your heart to break?” Worth noting is the display of Kweller’s instrumental ability; he played each and every instrument present on the record, adding to its organic texture. Though much of the melodic and stylistic ground Kweller travels will be recognizable to those familiar with his earlier work, the energy and personality infused into each song more than makes up for any repetition. Perhaps it’s fitting the record carries no name other than Kweller’s alone. His songs seem to be miniature self-portraits, completely and utterly representing an artist comfortable in his skin yet looking optimistically ahead. [www.benkweller.com]

“There are nights when I think that Sal Paradise was right/Boys and girls in America have such a sad time together.” Craig Finn’s sardonic, bittersweet sentiment opens The Hold Steady’s latest release and sets the album’s tone. In one respect, the band covers familiar territory on their third record, having grown quite adept at telling tales of misfits, addicts, and tragically pretty girls who spend their time “crushing one another with colossal expectations.” Boys and Girls in America is not, however, a lackadaisical exercise in rehashing successful formulas. Marrying riveting narratives with an ever-expanding sonic attack, The Hold Steady have issued their finest album to date and one of the year’s best. The Hold Steady has been recognized for deftly and energetically melding elements of alternative and heartland rock. The band's latest is a furthering of this ideal to a point of creative apex. Individually, the band’s members display instrumental prowess and excel throughout the record; collectively they create a backdrop as unique as Finn’s insistent sing-speak. Expressive keyboards interact with vigorous guitar and an uncompromising rhythm section to create a refreshing, punk rock meets E-Street Band feel. Opening track “Stuck Between Stations” immediately lends the album an epic tone, aptly making use of alternating dynamic levels. Building and swelling, the song gains momentum before the band pulls back, allowing Franz Nicolay’s piano solo to sweetly soften the track’s rougher edges. These initial moments prove representative of what makes The Hold Steady such shrewd musicians. Knowing when they have pushed both the volume and the envelope far enough, they show the restraint to allow moments of quiet clarity (such as on the beautiful “First Night”). Yet, the band never allows the album to grow too romantic or introspective, adding touches of lyrical irony and musical crescendo when necessary. After the excellence of 2005’s Separation Sunday, Boys and Girls in America is yet another step forward on an exciting artistic path. The Hold Steady’s capacity to mix both the sarcastic and the sensitive results in an album that is unique both in its approach and quality. [www.theholdsteady.com]

After listening to the post-Toad the Wet Sprocket output of Glen Phillips and Todd Nichols, it’s apparent that Glen was the creative genius behind the group. Lapdog, Todd’s band, has been largely forgettable, whereas Glen has been producing solid folk-rock albums, and his latest, Mr. Lemons, continues this tradition. Glen’s last album, Winter Pays for Summer, was his most commercial, and boasted higher production values than its stripped down predecessor Abulum. While the sophomore release was a good album with some decent songs, Glen works best on a more intimate level, and Neilson Hubbard, the producer this time around, steps back and lets Glen work his mojo on songs such as “Blindsight” and “Didn’t Think You Cared,” stepping in and giving just the right touch to the opener “Everything But You” and the single “Thank You.” He knows the value of a good closing track (just check out the closing songs on Fear and Dulcinea to see what I mean) and here offers the meditative (if not ironically titled) “Joyful Noise.” As he’s matured, his songwriting has changed to reflect more adult concerns. In the early years of Toad, the songwriter was still a teenager, and it shows on their early albums, particularly Pale. That’s not to say there isn’t melancholy on his latest–-it’s there in“I Still Love You,” maybe one of folk rock’s most wrenching songs this year. One of the album’s highlights is a cover of Huey Lewis and the News “I Want a New Drug.” Glen takes it and makes it his own. Fellow folk rocker Garrison Starr provides backing on several tracks, giving payback for Glen's guesting on her latest release The Sound of You and Me. As I mentioned earlier, Glen’s post-Toad product has been wonderful, and Mr. Lemons continues in this vein. While lacking the emotional wallop of Abulum, it offers up a stronger set than Winter Pays for Summer, and establishes him as a force in the folk rock community. [www.glenphillips.com]

I hope the sun doesn’t go black before LaMontagne finishes creating awesome stripped down, bare-boned beautiful music because if it does, we’ll be the worse for it. For one thing, we’ll be history. The sun’s important. Yes, that, but we’ll also be missing LaMontagne’s rootsy, smoky, subdued, yet powerful, voice and those songs he and collaborator Ethan Johns have created. Using quiet guitars, warm strings, and other folksy instruments, his album is superb in most every way. Songs like “Barfly,” “Can I Stay,” and “You Can Bring Me Flowers,” stick with you long after the tune has lilted away. Reminiscent of Iron & Wine, with splashes of Marc Cohn and Van Morrison, Lamontagne isn’t one of the rash of folk singers who are born in coffee shops reciting self-obsessed poetry while strumming a guitar. No, he’s a talent, a true honestly good talent, and his star, like the sun, will only get brighter after listeners tune in to this album. [www.raylamontagne.com]

Blake Miller's press sheet lays praise upon the 19 year-old that he's not quite ready for--"...[he] stands to quickly become one of the most renowned singer-songwriters of our day." Together With Cats is his bare-boned debut, full of multi-layered falsetto vocals, Akron/Family-esque harmonies, and fuzzy production complementing the acoustic guitars and occasional harmonica or violin. The still-ripening Miller finds himself nearing the area labeled with the dreaded "freak-folk" signs, but the subject matter is steeped moreso in traditional and "normal" matters than say, Devendra Barnhart, and though he presents himself (appearance, performing name, album artwork) as the typical coffeeshop balladeer, he's got a lot more up his sleeves. Download "In Our Own Places" [here] [www.exitstencilrecordings.com]

The Completist's Library re-treads all the ground that Sarandon has covered since its birth in 2003. The Brits' brand of minimalist, angular pop music is sharp and quick, with the 32 tracks only reaching about half the disc's capacity. With slicing, skittery D. Boon-esque guitars and simple repitition like The Fall, the compilation is one of those releases where if you love one track, you'll love them all. The band claims Gang of Four, Josef K and bIG fLAME as influences, but then they say that Sarandon sounds nothing like that. They don't. They're brief, concise, and really, really catchy. Download "Hiccup" [here] Download "Janet and Susan" [here] [www.hhbtm.com]

Comprised of brothers Thomas and Alex White of Brighton, The Electric Soft Parade sport a sense of urgency and mystery in The Human Body EP powered by that brand of crafty British pop-rock that’s always so addicting. The majority of the EP was recorded at their home with an 8-track and the result is rather enchanting. The appeal of the music lies partly in its parallel values of variety and unity. From quasi-epic builds to carefree organ-pop to weighty rockers, a sense of contemplative wistfulness prevails that really ties the work together. This contemplation is passed on to the listener, who is likely to find him or herself looking within. Music that makes you reflect on your own situation: a worthy goal so often missed. And not only is introspection achieved, it’s achieved with smooth vocals and interesting, accessible songwriting. Without putting too much stake into the reading of metaphors, The Human Body EP is comprised of its soft parts and its biting parts, its thinking parts and its feeling parts. Like the enduring mystery of the human composition, The Electric Soft Parade present a worthy shadow of its musical counterpart. [www.electricsoftparade.com]

A deviation from the standard label/event showcase that has become the everyday compilation, Happy Together is the result of that "sacred" union called a wedding. The story behind the coalescence of these 22 tracks is this--Lujo Records' founder Erik Aucoin recently married the label's former PR girl-turned label co-owner Jocelyn, and the couple decided to ask musician friends and Lujo bands to donate a track to this compilation, which would serve as a special gift to the wedding's guests. Due to the fact that the ceremony only pulled around 200 folks (and the press run on the disc was 500--pressing requirement), the DC-based label has limited leftovers that are now available. Besides being a conceptual little compilation and possibly a future collector's item, Happy Together pulls a number of covers and originals from a variety of bands. First, the standouts from the covers: The titular track, The Turtles' classic "Happy Together," is given a Mates of State-ish twist by Loop and Kara(of Summer Darling and Kissing Cousins, respectively); The Zombies' "This Will Be Our Year" from Odessey & Oracle done by The Out_Circuit (members of Frodus, Beauty Pill and Roadside Monument) deviates little from its '60s counterpart, though doesn't deliver the honeyed brass section. Lou Reed's "A Perfect Day" (from Transformer) gets treated with overarching synthesizers by Airport Cathedral, and Hanalei takes a good crack at Big Star's "Thirteen" with a bedroom approach to recording and some additional vocal tracks, then segueing into the laptop pop that was all over the band's debut We Are All Natural Disasters. The Dan Penn-penned "I'm Your Puppet" as done by All City Affairs is one of the compilation's highlights, and The Detholtz doing Phil Collins' "Invisible Touch" is downright laughable but laudable nonetheless. As for the originals, The Cassettes' lo-fi, country-tinged pop of "A Pioneer Love Song" and Pearly Sweets' soulful "Bounce" are standouts, while the rest of the pack aren't far behind. A Lull and Rural Wolf both make solid contributions, as well. But obviously, the covers are what pack the most punch, because many of them are steeped in the emotions that come out at a wedding, and have been there in the annals of rock history and connecting with people for decades. Happy Together is a superb compilation, commemorating a special day for a couple of record label heads and bringing a wide variety of musicians and styles together for a common, praise-worthy reason. [www.lujorecords.com]

Denmark's Ave strive to create highly symphonic proportions--the quartet succeeds on its Follow Your Saint. The EP glides through six tracks of icy trip-hop and post-classical pop, finding like-minded noisemakers in Radiohead, Sigur Ros and Portishead. For all the disc's desolate soundscapes, it's surprisingly epic sounding. Opener "Toll For the Brave" is propelled by minimal bleeps through the verses before its huge, U2-doesAmnesiac chorus. "Pilgrimage" is an awkward, disjointed pilgrimage through a wintry vastness, and "Endless Light (Live)" uses a typewriter as a its central percussion. The weakest point--though Dennis Winterskov sings Ave's songs in English, his falsetto makes his lyrics often incomprehensible, though its a voice whose strength is in its usage as another instrument. The band's press sheet says that they're ready to take on the US in 2007, and feel optimistic about conquering college radio. Follow Your Saint is a solid EP, but college radio can be a monster, and unknowns lacking label recognition are more often than not turned away before making it to the door. [www.ave-music.com]

The artwork adorning The Good Mornings' eponymous debut is far too reminiscent of the psychedelic pop of yore, a sound you'll not find in any obvious quantities here. Calliope members Carmen Paradise and Jason Lantrip find a more accessible outlet with this project, as the troupe aims at making often-twangy, spacy pop--unfortunately the type that doesn't seem to have much of a grasp on what direction it wants to take. Lantrip's guitar carries itself in and out of the verses, taking a skillful backseat to Paradise's smoky vocals, but both often fail to connect. The majority of the tracks sport some admirable nuance, but the album stays in the middle of the road more often than not. Still, not bad; "Tornado" and "Disengaged" are both admirable. [www.thickrecords.com]

Naples, FL is just a hop, skip and a few hours from the state's underground music haven of Gainesville, but the whole "No Idea Records" sound has travelled across the modern world over the years. Naples' Fake Problems aren't prone to sounding like anyone else who might be associated with that scene, but the unabashed capriciousness displayed on Spurs & Spokes/Bull > Matador is reminiscent of Against Me! (whom the quartet will tour with next year), Hot Water Music, early Lucero, and Defiance, Ohio. Simultaneously, it's a lot catchier and melodic than any of those bands. A compilation of sorts, the release brings together the songs from a 7" from earlier this year and four re-recorded tracks from the band's debut. An abundance of variety between the eight tracks aims to prove how Fake Problems are as suited to play something like a Plan-It-X festival as they are to share the stage with their lovely indie pop friends at Happy Happy Birthday To Me Records (whose Baby Calendar do some backing vocals on here). Honky tonk punk and denying the existence of a god are at the heart of "Motion of Ocean," while "Your Silver Heart" is restrained alt-country. "Degree'd or Denounced" could have almost been yanked from Against Me!'s Crime, a seeming cry out against the uniform life expected out of young adults (careers, not bands!). Honesty is almost always why we love bands like this; we can relate to their language and feelings, and don't see them trying to rise above us on some rockstar platform. Fake Problems' only problem is the lack of a proper full-length, but as that should be remedied next year, a name change might be in order. Rough, poppy and a helluva lotta fun = Fake Problems. [www.sabotproductions.net]

There’s always been a hermetic correspondence between Placebo’s image and their sound; a kind of “as within, so without” connection linking their brand of glam rock and their well-practiced airs as gothic gutter punks. Painstakingly manicured and carefully arranged with equal amounts of mascara and jarring sound and peopled with a rogues’ gallery of outcasts and misfits, addicts and rejects, their albums are elaborate exercises in orchestrated entropy. For its part, while Meds does make some overtures toward the rock’n’roll mainstream by sporting a more stripped down sound and catchier choruses, in reality it’s little different from the band’s previous offerings. From the spanking acoustic pulse of the guitar on “Meds” to the terminal strains of “Song to Say Goodbye,” the album is another ornate musical tableaux with enough heavy dollops of lyrical downers to make the even the most abysmally depressed reassess their mood. That’s all well and good, but for a band that attempts to sound the darker hollows of human existence, Placebo sounds pretty tame and more than a little ridiculous. Frontman Brian Molko’s nasal stylings are as distinctive as ever, but his bitter sense of humor seems to have left him, and the references to drug dependency, alienation, and loneliness that litter his tales reek more of adolescent melodrama than of genuine desperation, something which is enhanced by his overwrought lyrics. Grotesque, brooding, and more than a little stiff, like the album, they won’t just leave you blue, they’ll leave you blue in the face. [www.placeboworld.co.uk]

I have to admit: After I listened to the album once, I didn't pick it up (or double click it) again for a while after that. It must've been the fact that I was expecting the instrumentals of a post-rock band with Adam Turley's ethereal voice. Needless to say I listened to it again with minimal expectations, and it clicked. On this album, Adam Turley describes his changed vocals as his "church voice", warranting comparisons with Johnny Cash and Tom Waits. Each song is a different story, with the very human struggles of sin and forgiveness powerfully connecting these rich little narratives. In terms of style, the music is initially coarse-placing you in some border town saloon--but also beautiful and triumphant. There is no divide here between story and music. You can't help but feel for the characters: both victims and the guilty. As the story brings you in, the cello and building instrumentals manipulate that connection skillfully, the cello amplifying the meaning in his words. "Brother," the first single, is straightforward, fast-paced rock that has that defiant tone fitting the backdrop of a desolated ghost town. This album shines during Shiola and the album closer The Devil Drives. Both songs start off calmly enough, until the instrumentals build to a point the anticipation of the climax gives you a knot in your stomach, followed by the the music becoming minimal (or non existent) and Turley's church voice truly sounding like he sung it from a pew with his eyes passionately shut and looking towards the ceiling. [murderbydeath.com]

I imagine Hem singing at a state fair. It’s dusk. It’s warm. There’s a ferris wheel in the distance. They’re playing under a big colored tent, playing around hay bails that people are sitting on, eating snow cones and salted pretzels, taking a reprieve from the carnival. New Yorkers, Hem, who recently released a collection of covers, rarities, outtakes, demos, and live recordings (No Word from Tom), do good with Funnel Cloud, strengthening their musicianship, song crafting, and, undoubtedly, their fan base. Why? Sally Ellyson can sing. No, she’s not belting out the torch songs, but she lights up songs from the inside out, like a candle in a hurricane lamp, illuminating the musicians around her. Folk songs, Americana, country-tinged, they’re all within the album, and Ellyson’s delicate clear voice makes you want to go to the state fair and, while listening to Hem, eat a corn dog. [www.rabbitsongs.com]