Thao & the Get Down Stay Down/Lady Lamb the Beekeeper

Breaking into the folk genre can be tough, especially when one considers how uptight the music style’s purists can be when new bands try to shake up old standards. Whether or not Thao & the Get Down Stay Down have been subject to such criticism has yet to be seen, though the alternative folk duo is certainly taking an interesting approach. While the sound on its latest album, We The Common, often comes closer to typical radio pop than folk, founding guitarist Thao Nguyen’s guitar is twangy and raw enough for the comparisons to be apt. Whatever people consider the band, songs like “Holy Roller” and the already-featured-in-a-TV-ad “City” sound destined for heavy radio play in the not-too-distant future. (Jacob DeSmit)