The Jane Shermans

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Songwriter Angelo Petraglia has an eerie knack for quiet collaboration. This steady-handed muse with a finely tuned ear for melody has an uncanny ability to uncover and call forth the unique, iconic raw material in the emerging talents he finds. It was Angelo (his presence is distinguished enough that his last name is seldom necessary) who looked at the young, Followill brothers and saw the Kings of Leon. His presence as their producer and co-writer (he co-wrote all of their breakout debut album, Youth and Young Manhood) drove the boys to plumb the depths of their Southern souls and emerge as one of the decade’s most distinctive and buzzed-about outfits—not to mention a new generation’s unofficial authority on whiskey-tinged rebel heartache.

So it shouldn’t surprise anyone that Angelo has struck a vein of sultry silver in chanteuse Eulene Sherman. Sherman has the kind of voice that sounds as though it started the race ahead of Debbie Harry and Chrissie Hynde and never lost its lead—it soars and shivers, flecked with just enough smoky tarnish to let you know she’s been through the dark nights and neon-wet streets she’s singing about. She’s a New York City Harlem-raised, street-smart charmer who can be tough in her verses and tender in her choruses without shuffling a step. And with the Jane Shermans, she’s found a band that can match her spirit. Angelo, typically a near-invisible partner in his artistic relationships, steps out from behind the curtains to match Sherman’s bell-clear voice with a sharp, precise guitar sound that rings with nocturnal intrigue. Sherman shoulders the bass, accompanying herself with pulsing, aching lines that bounce perfectly off drummer Joshua Moore’s fierce, stick-splintering beats.

On their freshly-minted debut album, Popular Music Social Condition, the Jane Shermans deliver 11 tracks that serve as a chronicle of the promise of a thousand young nights in the city, and the heartbreaks that wait against the walls of all those dead-end alleyways. Produced by Angelo himself, engineered by Roger Moutenot (Yo La Tengo), and mixed by Jacquire King (Modest Mouse), the album is a thrilling and haunting work that shifts mood and pace effortlessly without compromising a shred of unity. Live, you’ll be amazed that three musicians can fill a stage with so much sound and while remaining so intimate.