Phosphorescent/Essie Jain

Apparently the Music Hall of Williamsburg is basically a slightly newer, nicer version of the Bowery Ballroom a couple miles east of the original.

I almost left last night after the first two acts because they were so uniformly excellent that I wondered if I'd be let down. Essie Jain and her band opened with refined, restrained folk-pop. Phosphorescent were slightly more amped up, if just as slow, with male vocals. Matthew Houck had the remnants of a sore throat, but I thought his crackly voice worked in its own way. Some slide guitar, selective use of distortion, a bit jammy here and there. I don't think you could make the comparison outright, but some of his phrasing, the nearly speak/sing delivery, and the playing reminded me of a sedated Bright Eyes in their more countryish moments--that's a complement, by the way.

White Magic, indeed, proved a bit of a let down. At least to me, their sound wasn't rich or interesting enough to be as spare and slow as it was. You'll notice a couple songs on their MySpace page with acoustic guitar, including a Bob Dylan cover from the I'm Not There soundtrack. I like these quite a bit more, but it seems that's not what they had planned for last night's show.