Best New Band

Fort Collins-based Matson Jones has been around for a couple of years, but it's only in the last few months that the group has really started carving out its empire. Not that the coed quartet seems crassly ambitious; instead, it's wholly focused on creating music that obliterates expectation even as it captures the brain and heart. With a lineup comprising two cellos, stand-up bass and drums, the outfit crafts a seething, tense tangle of sound resembling that of a chamber-punk PJ Harvey. Newly signed to Sympathy for the Record Industry, the indie label that launched the White Stripes, Matson Jones stands poised to whip its captivating whisper into a full-on roar.