Cafe Eleven

   At a time when screaming boys with loud guitars are considered the main purveyors of emotional music, it’s nice to have Matt Pond PA remind us that there are other ways to do it. Matt Pond — the frontman and main songwriter for this Philadelphia indie quintet - is a quiet emoter who, like Elliott Smith or Ben Gibbard from Death Cab for Cutie, constructs baroque pop songs with an undercurrent of sadness. Pond can make a tear-jerker out of a slight tremble in his voice or the wail of pedal steel on ramble-shamble rockers such as “Closest (Look Out).” His lyrics veer just near enough to pathos on “New Hampshire,” where he sings, “What you had in your hand/Is much more than the gold that I let go to grab.” In spite of all this, Emblems’ persistent bounce and countrified rhythms keep things almost sunny; the effect can be strangely, gorgeously disorienting.