The Eilen Jewell Band nearly blew the doors off the coffeehouse a couple of years ago — and we’re happy to have them back. Jewell is a young artist loaded with both talent and promise. She’s about to release Queen of the Minor Key, her fifth album. ¶ Boston-based Sarah Borges opens, going solo as her band The Broken Singles takes a break from touring. Borges is known far and wide for her exuberant stage presence as part of the band and that is even truer in her solo appearances.

Eilen Jewell has quickly distinguished herself as one of the rising stars of a new generation of roots musicians. Her first two albums, Boundary County and Letters from Sinners and Strangers, were astonishingly assured efforts, which matched Jewell’s understated yet insightful songs with a rugged blend of Americana styles. They were met with a great deal of acclaim, with No Depression raving that “Jewell is showing she can wander with the best of them, and write riveting song-stories about her adventures along the way.” Indicative of Jewell’s strong following in Europe, The Word in the UK described her as “A voice of real distinction [that] manages to transcend some powerful influences and pierce the fog long enough for her own point of view to emerge.”

Jewell’s third album, Sea of Tears, is a recording that fills in a vital, hitherto missing element of her musical persona. “Before I discovered Woody Guthrie and folk music,” she explains, “I was listening to Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, and, later on, the Animals and the Kinks. I love that stuff, and I love to play it.” With this album, Jewell and her longtime band of Jason Beek (drums, harmony vocals), Jerry Miller (electric, acoustic, and steel guitars), and Johnny Sciascia (upright bass) wed her elegantly unflinching songwriting with a rustic, pre-Beatles swagger that encapsulates vintage R&B, Midwestern garage rock, Chicago blues, and early rock and rockabilly, while maintaining the haunting, folk-inspired purity that first made her an artist to watch. Jewell has surveyed a wide range of traditional musical styles, from the folk and jug band leanings of her early recordings, through an album-length homage to Loretta Lynn and the country gospel of her work with The Sacred Shakers, right up to 2009’s Sea of Tears, which bristled with the electricity of ’60s UK garage rock and Chicago blues.

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Sarah Borges grew up in Taunton, Mass., 40 miles south of Boston. Borges titled her first CD Silver City, reflecting Taunton’s nickname and its history as a center of the Ameri­can silver industry. After forming the Broken Singles in Boston in 2002, Borges played hundreds of live shows in bars and roadhouses. Her 2004 appearance at South by Southwest in Austin earned her a record deal. Even so, Borges stayed employed as an admissions officer at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, working by day to pay for the privilege of playing music by night.

Her initial album was followed by the critically acclaimed Diamonds in the Dark in 2007. Her latest effort, The Stars Are Out, features five original tracks and five covers including revamps of tracks from the Magnetic Fields and Smokey Robinson. Performing solo, Borges said, has taken some getting used to, but she’s hardly nerved out by the format. “We’ve always invited the audience to participate so they’ve always been the fifth member of the band,” she said. “They’re still there. It’s like having 100 new bandmates every night when you’re in a solo format. People yell out requests and sometimes they heckle and sometimes they let me work my witty repartee. I don’t feel alone.”

• Eilen Jewell’s Sea of Tears has the feel of a breakout record. The Boston-by-way-of-Boise singer-songwriter already has built an avid following with three rootsy recordings teeming with songs that sound born of speakeasies and honky-tonks and train rides, all without — and this is the truly impressive part — a whiff of contrivance. But Sea of Tears seems sparked by a crush, a new old-soulmate called early rock ’n’ roll, and a glorious take on Johnny Kidd & the Pirates’ “Shakin All Over” is love-letter exhibit A. Independent Weekly (NC)
• Sometimes as darkly damaged as Lucinda Williams, at others as defiant and teasing as prime Peggy Lee and always authentically Ameri­cana in the Gillian Welch tradition. . . . She’s mighty good. LA Daily News
• In an industry in which it’s too easy to do it wrong, Eilen Jewell has done it very, very right, resulting in this superb and seamless romp through swing jazz, smoky country ballads, and nostalgic old-time music. . . . It’s a winner. Sing Out!
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• Sarah Borges made her name as a modern-minded honky-tonker with a retro streak. Her third album, The Stars Are Out (Sugar Hill), includes one tune apiece by the Lemonheads (her idea) and the Magnetic Fields (her producer’s), as well as Smokey Robinson’s “Being With You.” On these and a couple of other covers she sounds high-spirited and at ease, and her working band, the Broken Singles, backs her with just the necessary degree of twang.
  
  As a songwriter Ms. Borges lets in a bit more darkness, casting moods both defensive and reflective. Two of her most personal entries arrive at the album’s close. “Better at the End of the Day” is a weary self-exhortation, while “Symphony,” which includes sampled violin and analog synthesizers, assumes a philosophical tone. Both songs are striking for what’s missing: the bright certainty that Ms. Borges elsewhere exudes. Nate Chinen – New York Times