Mighty Rime

Kerry McDonald, former bassist of local emo legend Christie Front Drive, has reinvented himself with the Mighty Rime. Sounding at times like Neutral Milk Hotel's Jeff Mangum, Built to Spill's Doug Martsch or Lungfish's Daniel Higgs huffing helium, McDonald takes the unpaved back road to indie-rock rusticity. "Broke Baroque" is a strum-laden lullaby for an inbred shut-in; the harmonies on "Breathing Paint" sound like Gilligan and the Skipper duetting sea shanties after gorging on the carcasses of the rest of the castaways. Odd sounds saturate the mix at random, with static and psychedelics seeping through the songs' rickety structures like acid rain through an abandoned woodshed. The overall tone is rootsy, eerie and indelibly poppy. Add a touch of production by the Apples in Stereo's Robert Schneider, and you've got an instant, if modest, masterpiece.