A shimmering, guitar-heavy wall of sound imperceptibly slips into the ear at some point in the first track, picking up force and then remaining a fixture throughout the album. It conjures thoughts of distant landscapes, while a heavy Scottish accent complements it with a stream of evocative, if at times inscrutable, lyrics. They are usually sung, though sometimes spoken, and occasionally screamed. An accordion navigates its way through this sonic tempest, along with another, often playfully twangy guitar accompaniment.

p. This is the sound of Glasgow-based indie rock group The Twilight Sad. Following up its self-titled EP from last year with the release of “Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters,” this first full album is an impressive collection of songs.

p. Though the band is composed of mostly traditional rock instrumentation, the aforementioned accent of singer James Graham and the accordion add an alluring spin to the group’s sound. In addition, there is a strong, steady drumming that often pounds through the stormy guitar and accordion blend, giving solid support to a persistent, if at times roaming, backdrop.

p. What’s most compelling about The Twilight Sad is how its music comes together, with vocals serving as an appropriate balance to the expansive instrumentation behind it. Whether Graham’s lines soar or are barely audible, his tone remains intimate, even vulnerable. And while a fury of sound surrounds him, he seems distant, or at least unaffected by it all, as though he’s found his way into the eye of the hurricane and plans to stay there.

p. There’s a steady singularity to his voice — an emotional intensity that gives you the feeling he’s recalling distant, sometimes plainful, memories. Fortunately, the lyrics, when intelligible, aren’t depressing in the laughably maudlin manner of many similarly styled bands. At the same time, however, there is an underlying melancholy, but it successfully walks the fine line between poignancy and platitude.

p. This is apparent on the first track, “Cold Days from the Birdhouse.” Graham repeats a line several times to the steady beat of drums and what will soon be a familiar background of cymbals crashing against the guitar and accordion. There is a pause and then Graham moves to another line: “So where are your manners?” he asks, almost pleading. The question carries the song nearly to its finish and finally fades away. The only remaining sound is a high piano key that has been thumping its way through the entirety of the track, veiled until the end. Subtle discoveries like these are one of the more exciting rewards for listening to the tracks several times through, as they can be picked out earlier in the track if one knows what to listen for.

p. In the next song, “That Summer, At Home I Had Become the Invisible Boy,” the reminiscent feeling is especially evident, as Graham recounts a bizarre, likely fictitious recollection of when he was 14. “The kids are on fire in the bedroom,” he says, in what has to be one of the more surreal lines of recent memory. Then he screams, “They’re standing outside / And they’re, they’re looking in,” sounding incredulous over what he’s recounting. The playful guitar resurfaces from the first track, flits somewhere in the background among the accordion and heavy bass guitar as the song eventually fades, leaving only that shimmering mainstay. It takes a few times listening, but one soon discovers what emotional potency is embedded in those lines.

p. Throughout the rest of the album, Graham remains earnest without coming off as forced. The instrumentals also stay fresh with the unique combination of the droning background guitar, accordion and that other simple but vibrant guitar line that peeks in and out of several tracks. All of these elements become more prominent and more savory upon repeated listening.

p. This is an album that is worth listening to several times over. The initially hidden and surprising aspects, such as the persistent piano key or the vocal and instrumental combinations, reveal themselves after a time and add to the enjoyment and understanding of the listener. The Twilight Sad plays wonderfully textured music deserving of these repeat listens. Many will find themselves compelled to play this album repeatedly, and one should in order to fully appreciate the many subtleties of the band’s sound.

“Cassadaga,” the seventh album from Nebraska-based folk rock group Bright Eyes, is a spiritual journey of the soul experienced by lead singer and songwriter Conor Oberst. He takes listeners along with him as he rejects organized religion for a more natural approach to his beliefs. The album is named after a small town in Florida of the same name in which many psychics reside. Cassadaga is also mentioned in the lyrics of the second track.

p. It is hard to classify what genre “Cassadaga” is. It is mix of alternative, rock, folk, indie, classical and country, and features more than just Bright Eyes members Oberst, Mike Mogis and Nate Walcott. Thirty-two artists contribute to the album, many of them regulars in Nebraskan indie music.
Especially notable are Elizabeth “Z” Burg of The Like and Sherri and Stacy DuPree of Eisley. Some of the album’s best sounds come from string instruments. The guitar is featured in many songs and is played by either Oberst or David Rawlings, notable as a producer of Old Crow Medicine Show. Violinist Anton Patzner is one of the album’s hidden delights. His outstanding performance is a major highlight of several songs and lends the album a slightly classical sound.
Unfortunately, the album begins with what is probably the worst track, titled “Clairaudients (Kill or Be Killed).” The first and last parts of the song are a woman reminiscent of an old grandmother talking about traveling around the United States. This is strange enough, but the monologue is accompanied by a cacophonous orchestra playing what seems to be music from a B-list horror flick. In between them is an okay song, but it is completely drowned out by the surrounding discordance.
The second track, “Four Winds,” was released as an EP a month before the “Cassadaga” release. The strong guitar and violin that begin this song more than make up for the first track’s unpleasantries. “Four Winds” is a mix of country and Irish folk in which Oberst has written lyrics that do not beat around the bush. “The Bible’s blind, the Torah’s deaf, the Koran’s mute / If you burn them all together, you get close to the truth.” Or consider theses lyrics, a reference to a W. B. Yeats poem: “And it’s the sum of man / Slouching towards Bethlehem / A heart just can’t contain all of that empty space.” The strong anti-religious message screams about society moving forward and progressing without dignity or any actual improvement.
The third track, “If the Brakeman Turns My Way,” is in the style of Bob Dylan, marked by poetic lyrics and a beautiful metaphor. Life, Oberst says, is like stowing away on a train; your course is determined completely by the brakeman, the person who operates railroad switches. It single-handedly sets the mood for the rest of the album.
One of the best tracks is “Make a Plan to Love Me,” a song straight from a 1950s high school dance. The singer begs the woman he loves to try and love him. It’s straightforward, it’s old fashioned, it’s eclectic, it’s slightly creepy. The message is simple: the plans and schemes of life can sometimes distract from something more wonderful.
“Classic Cars” recounts a relationship that was once strong, but is now broken. Folk singer Gillian Welsh provides superb backup vocals, adding a poignant female voice to the song. The next track, “Middleman,” features a wonderful metaphor for continuing life: “The dead can hide beneath the ground and the birds can always fly / But the rest of us do what we must in constant compromise.”
Probably the best track on “Cassadaga” is “Cleanse Song.” It marks a turn in the overall narration of the album, both in lyrical content and musical style. It slows down, providing more poetic lyrics than some previous songs. It also contains a reference to the terrorist acts of Sept. 11: “See the new pyramids down in old Manhattan / From the roof of a friend I watched an empire ending.” The songs advocates not to let the tragedies of life be depressing, but to look for something that will cleanse and rejuvenate.
The penultimate track, “I Must Belong Somewhere,” denotes the final change from the dark undertones of the previous few unremarkable tracks. It marks a hopeful new beginning and indicates that the singer truly loves where he ended up. The final track, “Lime Tree,” returns to the slow tempo of the earlier songs without the dark imagery associated with that slowdown. “Everything gets smaller now the further that I go / Towards the mouth and the reunion of the known and the unknown / Consider yourself lucky if you think of it as home / You can move mountains with your misery if you don’t.” This profound metaphor is bolstered by his final words: “I took off my shoes and walked into the woods / I felt lost and found with every step I took.” The final view, suggesting the philosophy of Henry David Thoreau, brings to a close Oberst’s journey of the soul. He has questioned religion, analyzed spirituality and pondered mysticism. “Cassadaga” has a wonderfully eclectic variety of songs, with dozens of contributors who make each and every track truly unique.

We have seen the story before. A man in his late 20s realizes he doesn’t know what he wants to do with his life, so he drops everything and leaves town to find himself. Sound familiar? “In the Land of Women” is essentially “Garden State” set in Michigan, only much less clever and with a couple of unexpected plot twists.

p. The film begins when Carter Webb, played by the typically adorable Adam Brody (“The OC”), a 26-year-old softcore porn writer, is dumped by his foreign supermodel girlfriend. (Don’t worry, that confused me, too.) Feeling deeply depressed when he realizes how pathetic his life really is, he returns to his mother’s hometown in Michigan to take care of his feeble old grandmother, and it is here that he meets the three generations of women who are meant to inspire him and provide meaning to his disheveled life.

p. First is his grandmother, played by the brilliant Olympia Dukakis (“Steel Magnolias”), who firmly believes she is going to die despite any actual symptoms of illness. She makes no excuses for her awkward and inappropriate behavior, providing brilliant comedy in between the depressing drama of this film.

p. Second is the mother from next door, Sarah, played by Meg Ryan (“You’ve Got Mail”), who is quite convincing in spite of her frightening plastic surgery. Sarah appears to have the perfect life of a rich suburban housewife, but of course her life is far from perfect. Her husband is having an affair, her teenage daughter hates her and she has just found out she has breast cancer. So, of course she turns to Carter, the charming and precocious next-door neighbor, to remind her of when she was young and to look at her in a way that her husband hasn’t in years.

p. Representing the third generation is Sarah’s daughter Lucy, played by the up-and-coming Kristen Stewart (“Panic Room”). In the midst of high school drama, she remains dazed and confused about which boys to kiss and what to wear to the next party. She provides Carter with the taste of an adolescent experience that he never had, while he provides her with the timeless advice that she will, in fact, survive the humiliation of high school.

p. Three women and one confused guy lead to an array of plot twists, especially considering that he manages to make out with two of them. Overall, “In the Land of Women” seems like something you would see on Lifetime, filled with every unbearable cliche about finding yourself at any age. At one point, during one of his rants about life, Carter actually utters the words “it’s messy and it’s chaotic, and it’s not ever, ever what you expect.” The worst part of it is that he actually believes that he is saying something meaningful.

p. In spite of some hilarious moments and a couple strong performances, the film is lost before it ever comes to the screen. The script is filled with one-dimensional characters and too many cliches about how messy life can be. First time writer-director Jonathan Kasdan, while showing promise, fails to create characters that are actually worth caring about. Carter is far too self-absorbed to actually grow and there are too many scenes of him just staring into the distance instead of actually doing something to fix his life. At best, this movie is worth renting, but at that point you might as well just rent “Garden State.”