It's too easy to listen to a great record because someone tells you to, even to enjoy it, and never dig deeper into an artist's catalog. Especially in the case of The National, to assume they only got good when all the bloggers started to say so would be a colossally regrettable oversight.

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I'm a man prone to hyperbole, but when I tell you that my favorite band in the world is Endless Mike and The Beagle Club, please understand that I could not be more deadly serious. If there was ever a band deserving the attention of the rock music world at large, this is it.

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At 19 years old, Darryl Hunt was convicted of a crime he did not commit, and spent nearly all of the next 20 years of his life wrongfully imprisoned. His case was the basis of a fascinating HBO documentary, whose soundtrack -- featuring M. Ward, Califone, Spider Loc, and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah -- is now available on Amie Street.

And it's good.

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Despite the fact that Raine Maida still maintains the dubious honor of having performed the most dangerous act on stage that I've ever witnessed, I'd be lying if I said he didn't fall off my radar a bit over the past few years. In fact, before the recent rumblings about his post-OLP solo work, the last I think I heard of the guy was when he was doing production work for one of Avril Lavigne's records.

Let's back up a bit. About that dangerous stage act thing...

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John Bustine will drink like he'll die if he doesn't, till he does.

He is a songwriter by trade, but his record

is perhaps more easily discussed in terms of film. Each song is a dark vignette, a glimpse into a really bad day in the life of a character prone to bad days: drinking, bleeding, drowning, and drinking for your entertainment. And entertaining it is. Bustine's sound has been compared to Cracker's, and it's a good comparison. Cracker fans will like this stuff, but as in Cracker's best songs, the sound of Bustine's work is secondary to the narrative: it's the soundtrack, not the film.

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was released in 2005 by Portland (the left one) natives Foghorn Stringband, but the songs may as well have been discovered in some forgotten West Virginian time capsule, finding light after generations of darkness. Critics whose livings are made by knowing such things heap praise on the band's faithfulness to old-time styles and sensibilities, which is agreeable to me but falls short of justice for the folksy triumph of Foghorn Stringband's music. It sounds concomitantly familiar and new; it is at once similar to so many other wonderful fiddle-driven concoctions you've tapped your foot to before, and refreshingly unique.

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Thick with anticipation, the crowd hushes as the lights dim and the house music fades. Under cover of darkness and armed with instruments, an unassuming five piece takes the stage. Fingers fly deftly up and down fret boards, landing precisely in their intended spots, sounding note after accurate, split-second note. The PA fills the room with the crisp, clear ring of...banjos and fiddles. This, my friends, is how the other half shreds.

The first thing that'll occur to you when you listen to The Mammals is that this band can play. Soon after, you may slowly come to the realization that even though you never fancied yourself a bluegrass fan, you're tapping your toes, you're already singing along to Way Down the Old Plank Road on your first listen. In fact, if you try to tell me you didn't sing along, I'll look you square in the eyes and call you a liar. When they're at their best, The Mammals transcend the confines of genre; they make music that might be classified as bluegrass or folk but should rightly be called simply "good."

But Amie Street is full of great music that can be classified thusly. Let's talk specifics, shall we? For the indie-minded among us, 69 Pleasant Street is an absolute can't-miss, featuring Iron-and-Wine-evoking whisper-sung vocals. If a little political commentary is your thing, check out Whirlwinds , Lil’ Sally and the closer: Industrial Park . For pure, unadulterated sing-along fun, the aforementioned album opener Way Down the Old Plank Road is phenomenal, as is Wandering Boy .

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A phrase that gets thrown around like a rag doll in music reviews is "pop sensibility." It's a convenient genre-neutral go-to when the reviewer wants to express in a sentence, rather than a paragraph, that although this band's contemporaries might not all write catchy toe-tappers, this band does. The problem is that when a phrase like that becomes overused, reviewers find themselves having to use a paragraph (see what I'm doing here...) anyway to just to emphasize it. Yeah, the phrase is played-out. But it would be doing a disservice to Brooklyn's Breaking Laces to describe them as one of the thousands of indie bands in Kings County without pointing out that they pen some seriously infectious rock.

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At the risk of stating the obvious, there's a reason that in sports special considerations are given to rookies whose performances exceed expectations. And that even most #1 draft picks can expect to be riding the pine in big spots. Raw skill can take you pretty far, but when push comes to shove, there's no substitute for experience.

The potential that surprising young talent can always be lurking around the next corner is perhaps Amie Street's most thrilling quality. And discovering an artist like Luke Walton, whose picture you might find in the dictionary next to the definition of "potential," never ceases to satisfy. Listen closely and you might hear the sound of a pick striking the guitar body after an overzealous strum (a sound I actually love), or a moment or two when the layered tracks fail to gel. But you'll surely also marvel at the arrangement of Prelude , and the strength and conviction in Luke's voice in One Take

Long story short, I agree with Bankit2's assessment from a REC for Who Needs Tears :"This kid's gonna be real good in a few years." Much like an exceptional rookie season, Luke Walton's

EP isn't a masterpiece. It still sounds a bit uneven at points. But it's an extremely promising offering with a few great songs. Check it out, and let the nearly 50 RECs he's already accumulated be your guide.

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It's been long enough to call it "forever" since we first posted on these pages about The Seedy Seeds, but it's only been a few days since the duo from Cincinnati have finally posted the last remaining track from the fantastic record

. Let this post serve as a reminder to pick up Grace if you've been slowly buying the record as it's been posted like I have, or as a call to action to get with the program if you haven't yet been paying attention.

Grace features more of the same buoyant, jangly banjo-electro-pop we've come to expect from The Seedy Seeds, but beneath the fun and games of the instrumentation hides a bleak, melancholy narrative about the wedding of a condemned prisoner (yeah, really.) You'd be hard pressed to find song with darker lyrics and a lighter sound anywhere in the universe.

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