Jesse Sykes - Like, Love, Lust & The Open Halls Of The Soul (2007)

Jesse Sykes is hard to pin down--and that's a good thing indeed. She overlaps with current trends, but is completely her own artist. There are elements of alt-country, psych-folk, and singer-songwriter-troubadour, but also others that add alluring breadth to her sound, most notably in the band's penchant for drawing upon the best aspects of Haight-Ashbury ballroom sonics. "How Will We Know" swirls and builds with guitar tones that evoke John Cippolina (Quicksilver Messenger Service) and Barry Melton (Country Joe & the Fish). Sykes has taken those sounds (which were often the best part of the era's rather feeble cowboy machismo) and added finesse, poetics, and a woman's vantage point. Her lyrics are rife with cold winds and loneliness, but never without hope, even if that element is handled by the warm glow of the music. The band is a sympathetically balanced entity with supple power and grace. They move between loud and soft without the now cliched extreme dramatics originally pioneered by the Pixies--another example of Sykes eschewing trends and forging her own path. --David Greenberger