Kurt Vile

Vile sounds depressed. After dropping a debut bursting with sing-along pop anthems, he gives us this moody nosedive into fingerpicked folk-blues and hazy psychedelia. You really couldn't ask for a better candlelight-at-3 A.M. listening experience than God Is Saying This to You. The first lines of the opener, "My Sympathy," encapsulate what's to come: "So you want to marry me/ Well, you got my sympathy." About 30 seconds later he croaks, "So you want a baby/ Well, it's got my sympathy."