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CeliloThe Man Who Owns The Sand

The Man Who Owns The Sand is the third release of these local alt-country sad sack rockers, and despite amateurish cover art, it’s a tight, catchy record full of hooky, poppy tunes. Think Wilco or Ryan Adams, but with fairly direct lyrics that don’t shy away from sentimentality. Most of the tracks stick to contemplating lost love, or the inability to love in the first place, but Celilo isn’t afraid to rock out either, pulling out the Neil Young-like twangy, dirty guitars and vocal harmonies.

Daytime VolumeThe Day We Transposed

Don’t be fooled by the first track on Daytime Volume’s first release. Despite what it sounds like, this band is not about whiny, nasally, Colin Meloy-esque vocals, insert rockin’ bridge here, insert vintage keyboard solo here songwriting. Although that opener, “Building By The Street,” is damn catchy, now that I think of it. Most of the rest of album is devoted to Sparklehorse-like glimmery, reverb-laden pop tunes overlaid with sedated (and still nasally) vocals. It’s a combination that works when the band just relaxes and lets the whole thing happen naturally, like on “Decorations.” But many of the tracks just sound too constructed, too self-conscious and trying to force such a mellow sound just ends up kind of uncomfortable.

Anais MitchellThe Brightness

Released by Ani DiFranco’s Righteous Babe records, much of 25-year-old Vermont native Anais Mitchell’s second album is reminiscent of DiFranco’s early ’90s work. Although the first thing that jumps out at you when listening to The Brightness is Mitchell’s high, nasally, Joanna Newsom-like voice, it’s backed by some great instrumentation and vocal harmonies that round out her sound. It’s a record that doesn’t diverge much from the femme-folk standard in terms of construction: finger picked guitars and confessional, adjective-heavy narrative lyrics. But Mitchell’s ability to tell a story takes her a notch above the coffee house set.

ShiloePlease Remove Your Teeth From My Neck

First of all, I love the title of this six-track EP, even though it has absolutely nothing to do with the music contained in it (no, they’re not goth). That said, it’s a slickly produced disc of spooky ’80s-inflected rockers that sound a bit like Kim Gordon fronted Sonic Youth tracks. They’re tightly constructed songs, and they’re well played. They also sound like every other Joy Division-influenced band on the planet.

Warm in the WakeGold Dust Trail

At first glance, Warm in the Wake’s particular brand of acoustic Americana meets sparkly 21st-century indie is a catchy combination. A mandolin solo here, a moog riff there, and a sprinkle of reverb-heavy twang. Singer Christopher Rowell’s Tom Petty-like voice delivers just the right amount of lyrical irony. If anything, the band seems a bit too well put together. Nothing is left to be surprising. The guitar solo is exactly where the guitar solo would be. By the fourth or fifth track, however, I can’t help but feel like the sound is getting a bit formulaic.