Josh Shear

My re-entry into music as a passion hit a new level in mid-February as the piano that had been tantalizingly out of my grasp for five-plus years finally reached me and got tuned. I've played either it or one of the guitars almost every day since, and I'm listening to so much more music than I have since leaving Massachusetts in August of 2003.

And now, new music. Or new to me, anyway. Phish's reunion shows at the Ball earlier this month are available free from LivePhish.com, and so I downloaded them and have steadily been making my way through them.

Then, Seth came through town.

And then on Sunday, I wandered into Soundgarden with some rules for myself.

I would pick out four CDs from the used bins at 2/$10. They would come in cardboard cases. I would never have heard of the bands. I would judge them solely by their covers.

On further inspection, I really should have heard of some of these artists. Two of them are on major labels. A third is on what you might call a major minor label. The fourth is on a smaller label that I am very familiar with and that has given me much music that I love.

I managed to grab four winners, with one disc that will go into heavy rotation, and I'll probably get more. Here's a look at the four:

Hem, rabbit songs One of the first voices I ever fell head over heals in love with was that of Margo Timmins of Cowboy Junkies – who, by the way, have brought some guests back to Trinity to re-record the songs from The Trinity Sessions. Sigh. Hem frontwoman Sally Ellyson has that same rich, get-lost-in-it-for-days voice.

This was going to be the tossup for me, as the cover is fairly non-descript, the songs have titles like "sailor" and "waltz" and "betting on trains" and others that don't really speak to any genre in particular.

But it's plain old gorgeous. It recalls not only the Junkies but some old local (to Western Mass.) rising stars who fizzled out – the Scud Mountain Boys.

AbsentStar, (sea trials) Far from amazing but still a good, solid pop record, AbsentStar's 2008 offering won't necessarily remind you of anybody, but it will definitely provide a good backdrop to assembling that bookshelf or whatever you've got going on that you need a little drive for.

The Wildbirds, Golden Daze First off, I'm not linking to a Web site here, because the only operable site I could find is on MyS***e. Also, I find it very amusing just how worried Universal Records was about piracy of this disc – even in 2007, when pirates were gonna do whatever they were gonna do. The FBI no-duplication warning on the back of the package is as large as the song titles, and in a clearer, bolder font face. It's also the most obvious text on the disc itself.

This disc has pop elements for everyone. The ballads are like some of the old Rolling Stones ballads (like "Wild Horses"-type stuff), and the more driven songs are reminiscent of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers in the "American Girl" days. Frontman Nicholas Stuart sounds a lot like E from Eels, and they use his voice the same way.

I almost want to upload a song or two, just for ha-has, but I'd highly recommend this one.

The new musical addiction Ha ha, fooled you. You're going to have to wait until tomorrow to find out what I was talking about when I said on Sunday:

my head's spinning a bit over a new-to-me band i found today.