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Dead Confederate play exactly the kind of music a band called Dead Confederate should -- sluggish, sorrowful, searing, and Southern in virtually all the right ways. The Georgia quintet's debut may appeal to My Morning Jacket fans, but songs like "Heavy Petting" and "Start Me Laughing" (which recalls Kurt Cobain at his nastiest) possess more growl than that comparison implies.

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These youthful Brits shed some cuteness for their second album, perhaps because principals Billy Lunn and Charlotte Cooper are no longer snogging. Credit producer Butch Vig, too, who brings the trio closer to sonic Nirvana by coaxing out their snarls and then compressing and polishing them to maximum shininess.

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Depending on your disposition, former Moldy Peach Kimya Dawson -- who got a career boost recently from the Juno soundtrack -- is either endearingly naïve or impossibly irritating.

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Theresa Andersson’s songs are more enjoyable once you learn that she performed them pretty much alone in her New Orleans kitchen, tapping soda bottles, stepping on pedals, playing violin, guitar, drums, and chirping sweetly.

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Three albums in, the Stills still sound ambitiously confused. A brooding Interpol wannabe in 2003, the Canadian band ditched that sound (along with their singer) for 2006's more rootsy Without Feathers.