In rock music, proper noun band names are back: The White Stripes, The Thrills, The Strokes. And first-name bands are making a comeback in folk as well. NYC sextet Ollabelle boasts an urban gospel/blues mix. Winnipeg's the Wailin' Jennys recently released their debut full-length album. Closer to Boston, Maeve is steadily climbing the gig ladder. Besides nomenclature, three recent folk albums have other elements in common. Nathan, Blanche, and The Sadies filter country-folk-pop through a mazy mirror. All mix traditional instruments like pedal steel and banjo with theremin and "trickery." And all three have created small gems that should not be overlooked. 

Canadian quartet Nathan boasts two girlish-voiced singers and changes modes constantly. Like New England weather, if you get tired of one sky, wait a few minutes and it will change. The '30s swing of "Emelina" segues into soaring pop ("I Left My Station"); the next song opens with banjo and trumpets, then adds military snare. The different veins of "Jimson Weed" share sweet singing, seductive melodies, and neat rhymes. Imagine Jess Klein covering the Be Good Tanyas.

The two singers write the band's songs, which focus on independent women with attitude. One bids a lover goodbye, mildly regretful but determined to pursue her dreams (or as she puts it, with a twist, "A lot of bad ideas think I'm the one for them.") The narrator of "Gasoline" is on the lam after killing an abusive man -- hell, she'll even become a blonde if that will provide an escape. "Emelina" becomes "the talk of the town" after she gets drunk, mouths off, and burns down a kitchen. The bluesy "Red River Clay" taps into Appalachian ballad traditions, only in this case the woman lives and her man dies.

But what overrides the subject matter-- and this is harder to describe than the content of the lyrics -- is the songs' hooks. The first five times you listen to "Sunset Chaser," you most likely won't notice that the verses describe breakup and jealousy. You'll just groove on the lilt of the choruses.

The Sadies are best known for backing brash punk-folker Jon Langford, but the Canadian band's own album (their fifth) is a smoother affair. "North Humberland West" hails from a mythical West, where the bartender speaks a nimble twang. "Only You and Your Eyes" has a Chuck Berry slow-dance feel. "Why Would Anybody Live Here?" penned and sung by Robyn Hitchcock, has a garage rock propulsion. The Sadies pair these influences with foggy harmonies straight out of Crosby Stills Nash and Young. In fact, the entire album is cloaked in a haze. The steel guitars are smoky blue. Listen to the stately horn section jam that tops off "Translucent Sparrow" -- there's nothing by-the-numbers about this band.

"Favourite Colours" finds The Sadies in a pensive mood, concerned with nature, war, and the futility of human ends. A mini-song-cycle starts by accusing warmongers of their crimes, moves through a long, lush, orchestral interlude and then concludes with detachment. In the end, the group says you should just sit outside, listen to the birds, and "feel the love you feel" without giving it a moment's worry. "Why be so curious when nobody knows the truth?" Call it Buddhist or call it dissociation. "As Much As Such" speaks to the same philosophy, emphasized by a pure pleasure bouncy twang lick. The preponderance of instrumentals on "Favourite Colours" (five of thirteen tracks) seems to speak to the same point: Why overanalyze? Make beautiful sounds instead.

Still, the passivity becomes ambiguous at times. The instrumental "A Burning Snowman" sounds downright apocalyptic. No one's coming back in the ratcheting country song "Coming Back." The weather is gorgeous in "A Good Flying Day," but the hangar has closed and flying can happen only in the future. The tune's reedy singing and pedal steel confuse the point: How could such a pretty song hide genuine pain?

Blanche finds no peace anywhere. On this album, it's not only the doctors you can't trust. All the men Dan John Miller creates are tortured. "All my dreams are nightmares," confesses one of these characters. These guys take it out on their significant others, played by wispy-voiced Tracee Mae Miller (the songwriter's real-life wife). It's an old canard: bluegrass makes even sad thoughts sound happy and country makes even happy thoughts sad. There must be a way to tweak that sentiment for Blanche, whose songs are gorgeous but as bent as their narrators. "Who's to Say…" follows a stalker, who says "You say that by now I should know you'll never love me/ But who's to say that what has never been will never be?" This is creepy, enhanced by an arrangement in which instruments have such strong vibrato they almost go off-key.

"If We Can't Trust the Doctors…" never lets up. Serenity comes only asleep ("Superstition") or with eternal rest ("Bluebird"). The latter is deceptively folksy, with toe-tapping pedal steel and banjo line you could almost dance to. (The bluebird heralds death.) How about dancing "The Hopeless Waltz"? Bronzy autoharp turns "Do You Trust Me" into a broken music box. This suits the narrator, a jealous man who rejects a trusting woman. The other party is not always blameless, however. Yeah, he tells a snob, he's a garbage picker: "I guess that's why I picked you."

The band's version of the classic "Wayfaring Stranger" shimmers like ripples on a pond before it goes spaghetti western in the chorus. The album ends with a get-along-dogey stomp whose serene singer promises, with either optimism or despair "Someday you will find out." What you will find is left unnamed. You'd think this album's gray-sky overload would wear thin. But, like The Sadies and Nathan, Blanche sounds so good you don't always notice what they're singing about. These bands are nothing if not ironic: these albums are filled with songs whose lovely melodies mask the troubling, thought-provoking messages of their lyrics.

Danielle Dreilinger reviews folk and country music for WBUR Online Arts, the online arts magazine of WBUR, Boston's NPR News station.
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