Hop Along

Philly indie rockers Hop Along are in the middle of a countrywide tour to spread the word to spread the word about their new album, Bark Your Head Off, Dog, which has garnered loads of favorable reviews. Frontwoman Frances Quinlan’s fine-sandpaper voice remains the band’s most striking attribute, but it’s never been so melodic as it is on the new record. Her lyrics are delightfully obfuscating, jumping topics but tied together by emotional threads. The lines leap out at you. “Sunset on a cart pulled home by a white horse,” from the wonderfully complicated song “Not Abel,” sounds like the title of a painting by an Old Dutch master. On “How Simple,” she self-deprecatingly catches herself in a moment of vanity: “Pale as a banshee sun / Think I should stop checking myself out in the windows of cars.”