The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #242

#242: "All the Way Down" (2007) - Oakley Hall

Another song abounding with distorted electric guitar and crash cymbals and a strange lead guitar line, and another sound sporting a highly distinctive voice. This time, though, the voice is female, and it's a doozy. Rachael Cox (seated above)'s a folkie tarheel, and the band's other members range hail from Vermont to Mississippi. They've got a fiddle player, too, and a fantastic lead guitarist, whose electric/celtic (eleceltic? howsat for coining a new term?) style and sound-- resemble that of guitar legend Richard Thompson. Add a steady-rollin' rhythm section and Cox's fantastic vocals, and you've got yourselves an Amerindie version of Fairport Convention, now new with less folk!

So, their sound is derivative, but at least they cop it from a source that's not been tapped too often, and here, they construct a record melodic and catchy enough with enough space to let the eleceltic guitar ring and Cox strut her siren song.