No indie band tells better campfire tales than these flannel-clad Oregonians: They have been singing vivid folk-rock odes to horse-stealing and wolf-wrestling since their 2003 debut. Here, they get epic — tracking a prodigal son who battles hurricanes and dragons before becoming . . . a suit tailor. Trading low-fi ruggedness for gorgeous Americana pop, they conjure Dylan circa John Wesley Harding and proggy ELO but with bong-stoked epiphanies all their own. "You were hand in hand with the black-eyed angel of the evening star," intones singer Eric Earley, but the music is a sweet ramble-tamble.

“Is It True”

As the British Invasion reached its peak in 1964, Brenda Lee went from Nashville to London to record one of her hardest-rocking hits, her perky vocal backed by a stuttering, squalling guitar. That guitar was played by session musician Jimmy Page, yet to skyrocket to fame with first the Yardbirds and then Led Zeppelin. "She said to me, 'I've come here to make a record with the British sound,'" remembered producer Mickie Most. "She felt she wouldn't get the same sound in Nashville because they're only just catching up on the British beat group sound of about six months ago."