Bright Eyes, Jim James, M. Ward

Refill your Zippos before heading out tonight, ladies: These three indie troubadours will do everything they can to get you to hoist a flickering flame to their sensitive acoustic sounds. After a star-making year including boozy kisses with Winona Ryder and The New York Times‘ labeling him the new Dylan (not to mention a star-making week earlier this month opening for Bruce Springsteen and R.E.M.), Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst is gearing up to release two stylistically divergent new albums on January 25: I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning and–wait for it–Digital Ash in a Digital Urn. My Morning Jacket singer Jim James never seems wide awake, and I bet M. Ward, the male Cat Power, keeps real-life ashes in a real-life urn.