Little Me Will Start a Storm

I looked up Loch Lomond’s MySpace page before I’d heard a note. The Portland location and experimental/folk/pop tag had me suffering from visions of sub-Decembrists horrors, but a few minutes of opener “Little Blue Fences” assuaged those fears. Bright, minimalist acoustic musical elements piled on top of male-female harmonies and melodies, and by the end of the track, something like a punched-up New Order’s “Blue Monday” came to mind — driving dance beat, eerie synths and all. Truly, their MySpace tag is unusually accurate: Loch Lomond use folky instrumentation with experimental textures, but they create pop songs of a high caliber, with “pop” as the ultimate goal. Even at its most odd or melancholic, sheer likability makes Little Me an unusually moving half-hour listen. The best of these songs are earthy yet ghostly, light yet elusive.