Scene Cleveland Music Awards 2006

With more talent and assurance than her tender age might suggest, lithe Mentor teen Jami Ross has the potential to be on TRL a year from now. Performing at the House of Blues during the Cleveland Music Fest, she sounded even better than she does on her debut, Figure Me Out. She's backed by a crackerjack band that offers swooning pop-rock, over which Ross struts with more attitude than the typical pop artist and less "Oops, I did it again."

The defending champ two years running, Anne E. DeChant is working with Andy Ackland (Jason Mraz, Joss Stone) on her fourth studio album, which is due for release later this year. Her deep, resonant vocals have a breezy, engaging quality that skates alongside her urgent acoustic strum. While ostensibly a folkie, DeChant can tease a little pop or kick the roots-rock door, as necessary.

When Xe La says, at his Myspace site, "performing covers & originals that have no limits or gimmicks . . . just the raw art of music and songcraft," he puts it pretty succinctly. The offbeat singer-guitarist defies easy categorization, responding to the shifting demands of his musical id. There's something of a child's unmediated glee on his tracks. -- Parker

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Best New Album
Patrick Sweany Band, C'mon C'mere: From the sad, R&B-flavored sway of "World of Love" to the old-timey twang of "The Waterfall," Sweany flashes a lot of low-key versatility. While he's a scorching guitar player live, on the album Sweany is a little more measured, taking a slow-grooving circuit through rockabilly juke joints ("Step Outside") and Chicago blues ("The Hornet"), but never losing sight of the song's heart.

Interfuse, Closed Doors, Open Tracks: In hard, throttling cacophony molded into bite-size bits of angularity, Interfuse's guitars squeal with a noise worthy of Sonic Youth, but the lurching rhythmic pace is far more informed by punk experimentalists such as Mission of Burma and Wire. The result vibrates with taut muscularity.

Ringworm, Justice Replaced by Revenge: An unrelenting local hardcore fixture, the Cleveland quintet celebrates 15 years of no-holds-barred brutality captained by vocalist the Human Furnace (James Bulloch). On this, the best album of the band's career, 13 tracks of feral intensity strike a balance between Helmetesque metal churn and bottom-heavy hardcore breakdowns.

Coffinberry, From Now On Now: Comparisons to the Pixies are nearly inevitable in light of the careening post-punk attack of singer-guitarist Nicholas Cross' indie-rock croon. The quartet is noisy, for sure, but that's just the thorns on the stem of its blooming, off-kilter melodicism. Sparkling pop songs, such as the vaguely Pavement-ish 80-second track "Cruise Control Psycho," demonstrate an uncanny ability to slice to the beating heart of a tune.

The Vacancies, A Beat Missing or a Silence Added: For its second album, the Cleveland quartet jumped from Chicago label Smog Veil to Joan Jett's Blackheart Records and got production help from Ms. "I Love Rock and Roll" herself. It delivers the old-school punk-rock goods, from punchy, hard-charging songs such as the anthemic "Radio Revolution" to the blistering drug ode "Children of the Century (Gone to Waste)." -- Parker

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Best Song
Black Diamonds, "Cold Cold Heart": It'd be difficult to overstate the heft of this chunky slab of blues-boogie heaven. From the chucka-chucka-chucka of the rhythm line to the John Paul Jonesish walking-bass riff to singer Chad Van Gils' vocal swagger, this number exhibits a classic balls-out rock rumble. It's topped like a sundae by guitarist Dylan Francis' mid-song wah-pedal freakout. Did we mention these guys just graduated high school?

Whitechapel, "Love Goes": A little taste of '80s darkwave, the Cleveland trio slithers with a pitch-perfect take on the Brits' icy romanticism, as singer-guitarist Ben Childs intones, "As far as love goes/This is all right/I'm not saying that I could/Stand you all night." The guitars jangle like New Order, the synth throbs over cascading snare beats, and there's a thrum of ambient shimmer, like someone's playing the Jesus & Mary Chain in the background.

Trendy, "S&M (Breakfast of Champions)": A refreshingly honest paean to man's one-track mind, this three-minute blast tumbles headlong over a ska-punk beat, as the singer suggests that while "you treat me like shit," he's "horny and needy" and willing to "let you beat me in bed." He's actually given it a bit of thought, and offers a variety of abusive, degrading options from which to choose.

Balomai Brothers, "And Every Single Song Is Gonna Go Like This": It's not a tribute to glammed-out garage rockers so much as a musical complaint that takes as its source the Bo Diddley-style riff underpinning Jet's ubiquitous "Are You Gonna Be My Girl." The Balomai Brothers don't want to be their girl -- they want to slice and dice them with shards of old Stooges vinyl and feed them like sushi to the record execs who churned them out.