Alabama guitarist Katie Crutchfield sings bruising punk ballads about hanging out with other miserable young people and waiting for the fun part to begin, while starting to get the horrible suspicion this might be the fun part. Live, her band does a fantastic punked-up cover of Paul Simon's "The Boy in the Bubble" – and on her superb second album, Cerulean Salt, her songwriting lives up to that level of inspiration. Her first Waxahatchee album, 2012's American Weekend, was solo-acoustic melancholy, but the band here helps bring out all the frayed desperation in her voice, from the power-pop surge of "Coast to Coast" to the soft-spoken rage of "You're Damaged." Sometimes she gets what she wants ("And we are late/And we are loud"), but most times she doesn't ("We will find a way to be lonely any chance we get"). But she always gets a great song out of it.

“More Than a Feeling”

Boston mastermind Tom Scholz was as surprised by anyone when he sent his unsolicited demo to record labels and got back a positive response. Scholz said, “I couldn’t believe it. Nobody knew who we were, so I wouldn’t even say we were struggling. It was groveling.” Part of the credit for the interest must go to the anthemic rock number "More Than a Feeling." Inspired by the Left Banke's 1966 hit "Walk Away Renee," Scholz worked on the song for five years in his basement studio before it was released on this album.