The task that faces Sufjan Stevens, a planned 50-disc series of gentle folk-pop honoring every state in the union, is mighty big. They Might Be Giants' John Linnell only managed to produce one album of state songs, possibly more than we'll ever really need, and at number two, Stevens's project is already showing some signs of wear. With just a handful of solo albums (he's also an honorary member of the Danielson Famile), he has clearly cut his stylistic path, but at the same time he finds himself treading dangerously close to becoming too precious – and too kitschy – for his own good.

Even with that in mind, though, it's tough to deny Stevens's songwriting mastery. He favors off-kilter time signatures, which seem to mimic the pacing of his last state record, Michigan, by scattering 3/4 and 5/4 lullabies throughout. But while the piano and horn arrangements are familiar, they're no less sweet, and his voice – one that in the figurative sense performs like a character in a Jim Jarmusch film, often pulling from Illinois's most unknown people and places – is about as gentle as they come.

Michigan, Stevens's ode to his home state, was driven by personal reflection, but on Illinois, his tune generator required a bit of Method acting. Yet the distorted history lesson teases out some fantastic tales. "The Man of Metropolis Steals Our Hearts" interpolates Superman's journey to showcase the city of Metropolis, Ill., (Illinois's cover once boasted a painting of Superman but was pulled on its release day last week because of a cease-and-desist order from Time Warner and DC Comics), and "Come on! Feel the Illinoise!," a two-parter that starts with a Vince Guaraldi-type piano riff and slowly grows into its elegant second movement (subtitled "Carl Sandburg Visits Me in a Dream"), gently toys with nostalgia for the state's most noted poet. His skillful fiddling with the past – and its tendency to be skewed by memory, experience, conflicting research, and seldom-told anecdotes – is quite playful and entertaining; "The Seer's Tower" (sic) and "John Wayne Gacy, Jr." provide fine examples. But after two pretty similar stabs at it, the question isn't so much will Stevens complete the project but should he? Sufjan Stevens plays Sun/17-Mon/18, Great American Music Hall, SF. (415) 885-0750. (Ken Taylor)

Longwave
There's a Fire (RCA)

Losing track of Longwave and their last album, The Strangest Things (RCA), was really easy amid all the Interpol-ing, Stroke-ing, and other retro revivals happening two years ago. A part of that stemmed from their then-sound: Their brand of post-punk peppered with a heavy dose of U2 wowed at the onset but felt increasingly familiar with repeated listening. Moreover, guitarist Steve Schiltz sang on top with an everyman voice that never matched the atonal ennui of Julian Casablancas or the shell-shocked romanticism of Paul Banks. Longwave just seemed to be the band next door – they were that great group who were better than anyone else in the neighborhood but you never needed to lock up your daughters to keep them away.

Their third full-length, There's a Fire, changes all that. Longwave still keep to their established trademark of delayed and effected guitars among danceable grooves, but they add more elements to the pot, including falsetto vocals, guitar solos, and daring arrangements. With producer Jon Leckie on board, it should come as no surprise that the record, particularly on the orchestrated "Heart Attack," occasionally recalls Radiohead's The Bends (Capitol). Elements of the Flaming Lips shine through as well on the Soft Bulletin-esque piano ballad "The Flood" and the Yoshimi-style electro-folk of "Underworld," replete with Wayne Coyne falsetto. The Strangest Things producer and longtime Flaming Lips collaborator David Fridmann really left his mark on the band, though the change didn't become apparent until now.

But that seems to suggest Longwave have made a solely derivative effort. Not so. A sense of adventure permeates every track precisely because of the band's everyman character. There's a ferocity of intent in the title track and the powerful "River (Depot Song)," which includes expansive dynamics and guitar solos. Those songs match the album cover and sleeves adorned with drawings of Cerberus, a kraken, and other imaginary beasts. Elsewhere, the band cross surf rock with Nirvana on the hyper "We're Not Gonna Crack." Finally, the presence of two instrumentals surprises the most. "Dancing in the Night" revels in moody synthesizer and shimmering guitar textures straight out Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. With Carlos Anthony Molina on saxophone, the hidden track "Sea Monster" veers into downtown New York territory with its sprawling Albert Ayler techniques and rock 'n' roll foundation. Who knew the guys next door had skeletons like these in their closet? Next item rescued from the mothballs: leisure suits. (Alex K. Fong)

Various artists
Classic Southern Gospel (Smithsonian Folkways)

The divide between Bill Monroe's keening countertenor and Benny Martin's booming bass on a performance of the 19th-century hymn "When He Reached Down His Hand for Me" would be wide enough to drive a semi through if it weren't for Mac Wiseman's tenor and Don Reno's baritone filling in the harmony. Monroe's trill-driven mandolin solo and Wiseman's strumming acoustic guitar are the only nonvocal sounds heard on this 1965 meeting of bluegrass titans. It's an especially bone-chilling example of bluegrass gospel harmony, and one of the strongest songs of the 22 compiled by producer Kip Lornell from the Folkways catalog for this overview of white Southern gospel music.

RCA Victor cornered the market for mainline Southern gospel during the '50s and '60s, with many of the genre's superstars under contract, including the Blackwood Brothers and the Statesmen (the two quartets most adored by the young Elvis Presley). Folkways, with its vastly smaller budget and decidedly noncommercial philosophy, instead captured the rural side of the equation. Much of it is of the bluegrass variety, and many of the performers are well-known. Besides the aforementioned four, they include Doc Watson, Frank Wakefield, Hazel Dickens, and the Country Gentlemen.

In addition to these and other professional musicians, vocalists for whom music was simply a component of Sunday worship are also represented. These performances are less polished and, in some ways, more deeply felt. This is particularly true of the compilation's earliest and newest tracks. The dozen raw voices of the Old Harp Singers of Eastern Tennessee heard on "Wondrous Love" from 1951 suggest revival meetings of a half century earlier, while a haunting reading of "I'm Going to a City" by the Indian Bottom Association of Old Regular Baptists from 1993 might have come from an African American storefront church – if it weren't for the singers' nasal tonalities. Lornell discusses the cross-pollination of black and white styles, along with denominational issues, in the CD's richly detailed 25-page booklet. (Lee Hildebrand)

Kinski
Alpine Static (Sub Pop)

The songs of Alpine Static are built on the same two- or three-chord rock patterns that every 15-year-old blares on the Marshall stacks in Guitar Center: Duh-duh-duh-da-duh-duh (repeat). String a few of them together and the resulting drone sounds something like Sonic Youth climaxing with any band that has "explosions" or "fire" in their name – if all were stripped of their juicy parts and baked skinless in a hot cliché. The Seattle foursome's nine-minute songs (and even three- or six-minute songs) stumble through a desert of power chords with no oasis in sight, at least not from the psych-noodling that, like the prairie wind, rarely ceases or goes anywhere. (It's just depressing to follow a guitar lead or chord progression and feel it wandering aimlessly. Where am I being taken? Why do all these walls look the same? Make it stop!)

This senseless repetition is ostensibly justified by the band's claims of minimalism – à la Steve Reich or Terry Riley – as an influence. But that music isn't as simple as Kinski want it to be. In these composers' works, textures constantly morph. Their use of repetition is almost incidental and creates a mental impression that somehow transcends the individual musical figures.

Kinski's figures strike like speed bumps in a John Deere – going straight to the weary ass. Ouch. Kinski perform Fri/15, Amoeba Music, SF. (415) 831-1200. They also play Fri/15, 12 Galaxies, SF. (415) 970-9777. (Ian S. Port)