WHO A coed L.A. quartet with a Hollywood pedigree, a crushworthy lead singer and one of the year's best rock records.

SOUND Rilo Kiley's third album, More Adventurous, combines urbane country, string-laden folk pop and heart-rending ballads, all sung by redheaded spitfire Jenny Lewis in an emotive voice sure to melt the hearts of indie boys everywhere. The album's mature, romantically evocative sound has earned the band raves from all walks of life. "My godfather is fifty-five and a true conservative, and he genuinely appreciates this record," Lewis says. "That feels nice."

STAR CHILDREN Lewis and her fellow songwriter, guitarist Blake Sennett, were child actors - Lewis appeared in Troop Beverly Hills and The Wizard (opposite Fred Savage), and Sennett was a cast member on Nickelodeon's Salute Your Shorts. "I wasn't a good actor," Sennett says. "Jenny was a much better actor than me. If anything, acting made me more of a timid musician, because I felt less authentic at first."

SAY WHAT? Rilo Kiley have turned out some of the best relationship songs in recent history (sample lyric: "I can take my clothes off/I cannot fall in love"), and fans tend to obsess over the group's lyrics and private lives. One girl recently tattooed a line from More Adventurous on her back, and Web sites have speculated that Lewis was a cokehead and that several recent songs are about actor Jake Gyllenhaal, with whom Lewis was reportedly linked for a brief time. (For the record, the band denies all of these rumors.) But Lewis and Sennett, whose long-dead relationship once threatened to destroy the band, say they mostly prefer to keep themselves guessing. "We're constantly assuming songs are about each other," Lewis says.