Highlight Tracks: "Jet Black" and "Lucky Strike"
For More Info: Head over to http://www.capitolyears.com or http://www.fullframerecords.com
Artist: Cheating Kay
Album: Concept
The Scoop: The male-female two-pronged vocal attack has been fashionable for some time in indie rock. The best moments on Concept, though, come when the vocal reins are firmly in the hands of Sarah Mueller. She carries the cresting desperation of "Be The One" and later makes you swoon with graceful torch songs like the album's unlisted finale. Her male counterpart, Tom Mueller, is a passionate vocalist, but too often strays into the sort of fragile over-emoting that is difficult to pull off if you're not Jeff Buckley. Songs like "Every Morning," meanwhile, are given life mostly by Curt Cuscino's texture-tinkering with synths and electronics. The Missouri quartet coyly flirts with myriad genres without committing to anyone special. For me, though, the finest moments on Concept are when the band strips down to simple acoustics and lets Sarah Mueller shine. You can picture her singing dusty country songs just as easily as you can see her crooning jazz standards in a smoky piano bar. Maybe this means she and her band haven't fully found their niche yet-at their young age, it's safe to say their best work lies ahead-but it's already a treat to cozy up with Cheating Kay on the headphones.Highlight Tracks: "Be The One" and the "hidden" closing track.
For More Info: Stop by http://www.cheatingkay.com
Artist: Hem
Album: Rabbit Songs
The Scoop: On the heels of The Strokes and Interpol, it doesn't seem like there would be much room in New York for an earnest, countrified, wholly lovely band like Hem. Perhaps it's no surprise, then, that Rabbit Songs found its American home on Hoboken's Bar None Records in 2002, two years after those damnably cagey Brits released it. Well, the U.K. may have beaten us to the punch, but the music itself is pure Americana, and the story of the band is pure Hollywood fairy tale (Sally Ellyson answered a Village Voice "Vocalist Wanted" ad by singing a lullaby into an answering machine; after she'd won the job, the band decided they had something so special that they risked personal bankruptcy to produce the album properly). No, Ma'am, none of that Pro Tools crap here. No, Sir, no computerized musicians on this one. Instead you get a lush eight-piece band in full force, pristinely produced and fleshed out even further by myriad guests on strings, horns and woodwinds. Ellyson's airy vocals are both heartwarming and heartbreaking, but an even brighter gem is principal songwriter Dan Messé, who stitches together a loving, loveable album of gorgeous arrangements and poetic lyrics, of fragile swoons and exquisite aches.
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