The Elected

Blake Sennett's breathy, breakable delivery is as overly dramatic as a LiveJournal entry, and his dear-diary lyrics are even more so. "And if you see me down at the liquor store, please don't tell my dad," he moans on "Greetings in Braille," with the back of his hand presumably draped across his forehead. "And if you see my dad down at the liquor store, don't tell me anything at all." You'd have to assume a fainting couch was brought into the studio at some point. But that's the genius, if that's what you wanna call it, of Me First, Sennett's debut fronting his own group after a couple of albums playing guitar and singing the occasional tune with Rilo Kiley. Me First, at times, is as effete and affected as Johnny Depp's work with Tim Burton. Fortunately, it's just as good. The lyrics and the guy who sings them are, at least. The music is sort of country-rock ordinary, even when the Postal Service's Jimmy Tamborello shows up and starts putting on the glitch, attempting to turn "Go On" into an Aphex Twin jam. (I thought my stereo was busted the first time it came on. Because I'm just that stupid.) The thing that sets the disc apart is that Sennett's songs are so specific -- names, dates, places -- they become intimate automatically, a shared secret by default. Maybe Sennett is only revealing details about a persona instead of a person. Whatever, it works.