Elvis has entered the building — this time, on his own

I was wowed — and so was the audience — at the Moore Theatre in January when Elvis Perkins opened for the powerful jam band My Morning Jacket.

It was clear to me that Perkins could carry a show himself.

Apparently, somebody else noticed, too.

Perkins takes center stage tonight at the Tractor Tavern in support of the debut album "Ash Wednesday," released last month.

Perkins, 31, brings to the stage a rocking and mature folk sound, with poetic lyrics, hypnotic melodies and a voice that recalls Radiohead's Thom Yorke with its plaintive style.

To distinguish this show from his album, which is straight-on Elvis, Perkins is calling this tour Elvis Perkins in Dearland.

The son of Hollywood actor Anthony Perkins, the young crooner has a back-story that is nearly as interesting — and more tragic — than his music. His father died in 1992 from AIDS, and his mother Berry Berenson, a photographer/actress, was killed on Sept. 11 in one of the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center .

It's not hard to imagine those events influencing the young singer's music. In fact, almost half of the songs on this first album were penned after his mother's death, he explained in a brief phone interview from California.

Before he was featured in Rolling Stone this year, audiences may have heard these songs without associating them with Perkins' personal life.

"Sometimes I find myself wondering what the audience is making of it," he said. "Maybe there was a little more sense of safety playing them as complete anonymous people."

Many other songs on "Ash Wednesday" were written up to seven years before Sept. 11.

But even on one of those tunes, "While You Were Sleeping" — in which he teases his girlfriend for being able to sleep through anything — some tragic event seems to be foreshadowed, he agreed.

"It's the notion that maybe everything has already happened, is happening all at once," he said.

Perkins added that he hopes to achieve this kind of universality through his tunes — creating an all-encompassing feeling anyone can relate to.

He balances out what might be painfully morose themes with an upbeat and sometimes whimsical feel. To wit, on "While You Were Sleeping," the bridge includes playful repetitions of "uh oh," sung at the end by kids. They are even credited as "uh oh sayers" on the CD.

Believe the buzz about this philosophical young troubadour — and get on over to the Tractor.