The second album from Montreal’s Lullaby Baxter sounds like the perfect soundtrack to a montage from a romantic comedy. Picture cycling through the countryside, baguette shopping, dancing in the park fountain. Though sung entirely in English, there’s a definite Gallic feel to this record. Baxter’s rich, lightly menthol-smoky voice sounds marvelous singing her breezily nonsensical lyrics atop the gentle, tasteful orchestration. Contemporarily timeless and equal parts pastoral folk and urban jazz, listening to this makes me want to wear a beret and go feed some pigeons.

MP3: Lullaby Baxter – “Rattled Little Clam”
Video: Lullaby Baxter – “Rattled Little Clam” (YouTube)
MySpace: Lullaby Baxter

Flight Of The Flynns

Hailing from Oklahoma, Kunek’s debut album Flight Of The Flynns is composed of finely-crafted, elegant and baroque pop, rich with strings, piano and Jesse Tabish’s mournful vocals. All six members of the band are multi-instrumentalists and their musical prowess is very much in evidence across Flynns, the arrangements and ambition in evidence are incredible impressive for a rookie outfit but for all their technical ability, they always remain in service to the song and the emotions held therein. From start to finish, this record exists in a state of shimmering, suspended sadness, as though examining a single moment in time from every possible angle. Though the heart-on-sleeveness occasionally strays into alarmingly Coldplay-ish territory, it remains impressive nonetheless.

MP3: Kunek – “Coma”
MySpace: Kunek

San Diego’s North Atlantic are lucky they fess up to the Archers Of Loaf influence because listening to their debut Wires In The Wall, the resemblance is remarkable and trying to deny it would have been futile. Vocalist Jason Hendrix’s rough bark is startlingly Bachmann-esque and the band taps into the same raw, punk energy and righteous collegiate angst that the Chapel Hill stalwarts mined over a decade ago. It’s a recipe that surprisingly hasn’t been utilized very often in recent years so as a result, The North Atlantic sound quite fresh and vital. I’just m curious to see if after The North Atlantic runs its course, if Hendrix becomes a folk singer. The band are in town at Sneaky Dee’s on Tuesday night.

MP3: The North Atlantic – “Scientist Girl”
MP3: The North Atlantic – “Drunk Under Electrics”
eCard: Wires In The Wall
MySpace: The North Atlantic