The Hush Sound, The Cab

A couple of years ago, The Hush Sound was just another boy-girl emo band from Chicago. The four kids, all barely out of their teens, did the usual bump-and-grind with the industry: They released a couple of albums, they made videos, they toured, they almost broke up.

All of this came down after 2006's Like Vines, which—like the previous year's debut, So Sudden—balanced singer/pianist Greta Salpeter's written and sung songs with those written and sung by her guitar-playing band mate Bob Morris. But somewhere between Like Vines, the break-up talk and recording the new Goodbye Blues, everything flipped around. Goodbye Blues is decidedly Salpeter's album. And The Hush Sound, whether she wants to admit it or not, has become Salpeter's band. On Goodbye Blues, Salpeter, coming off like Fiona Apple's go-getting understudy, lifts her voice to operatic heights, and her piano fills every empty space.

Still, Salpeter insists that The Hush Sound remains very much a group band. But it's hard not to read something else into this role reversal. Especially when Salpeter admits, as she has in recent interviews, that most of the songs on the record were written for her solo project.