Beaten Awake

The motley bandits of Kent's Beaten Awake use the best bits of their previous music groups to build a super-strain of heady folk-rock harmonies. "You can hear little bits of Party of Helicopters, Harriet the Spy, and the band Jon [Finley] and I were in for a while, The Man I Fell in Love With. Even little parts of Six Parts Seven -- just because of [guitarist Al Karpinski's] style," says Joel McAdams -- one of the group's two singer-songwriters. "But now it's a lot more melodic, and now it's a lot more about the songs."

The band's new catalog keeps an eclectic balance of laid-back rock gems ("Bubble Bath of Sharks!!!") and moody folk melodies ("Broken Fang") that should strike a chord with My Morning Jacket or Folk Implosion fans. Only together since July of 2005, the Kent supergroup has already started recording its first album -- co-produced by Black Keys drummer Patrick Carney and tentatively scheduled for a fall release -- on Audio Eagle/Fat Possum Records.