Rising stars Jesse Sykes and Brandi Carlile thrill hometown

Ray, Quincy, Jimi, Kurt, Layne, Eddie, Chris, Isaac, Ben ...

The list of Seattle music icons is pretty male-dominated, isn't it?

That may change in the very near future. Over the weekend, Brandi Carlile and Jesse Sykes both showed the potential to be the first local female to rock a national audience in years. (While the Wilson sisters of Heart are firmly entrenched in the Seattle music story, some would insist Courtney Love is more from outer space than the Puget Sound).

Jesse Sykes & the Sweet Hereafter played Saturday — repeating tonight — at Ballard's Tractor Tavern. The first show was sold out, and filled with spine-chilling moments as Sykes sang from her new "Like, Love, Lust and the Open Halls of the Soul."

The title is a mouthful; the concert rendition put an exclamation point on this bold departure. Phil Wandscher, Sykes' guitar player/boyfriend, has on previous albums remained in the background, setting minimalist moods for alt-country/Americana songs.

The new album gives the former Whisekytown guitarist much more room to rock, as he breaks out stirring passages ranging from Neil Young to Beatles psychedelia.

At the Tractor, the Sykes-Wandscher interplay was dazzling. Sykes, with her long dark hair hanging like a curtain unveiling her face, sang with a clear, soft, husky, mysterious voice, with the shaggy-haired, left-handed guitarist adding piercing, higher-pitched notes, swirling around her. She is Alice, he the Mad Hatter.

Review

Brandi Carlile, Friday night at the Triple Door; Jesse Sykes & the Sweet Hereafter, Saturday night at the Tractor

All musicians should strive for the concert focus that these two have. Sykes' vocals are precisely delivered, urgent messages: "Like, love, lust/sometimes you have to kill/the one you trust." Wandscher is like an expert spot welder, heating and melding songs like "LLL" and "Hard Not to Believe" with his torchlike guitar.

Sykes and Wandscher spiced the set with a few choice covers, notably the Velvet Underground's "Oh Sweet Nuthin'." Mostly, though, the band (featuring bass player Bill Herzog and drummer Eric Eagle, but without longtime violist Anna Marie Ruljancich, who has moved on) expertly mined the dark, rich cave that is "Like, Love, Lust ... "

The only thing holding Sykes back from stardom is that she is so hard to define, as this dynamic album explodes any easy categorizations. Even so, Seattle's Barsuk Records, best known for launching Death Cab for Cutie, has another thoroughbred in its stable.

Carlile has the advantage of being on a major label, Columbia Records, which helped get three songs from her previous album featured on the TV show "Grey's Anatomy." At the Triple Door on Friday night, Carlile told her adoring fans that her new "The Story" video will be shown on "Grey's Anatomy" this week.

At the elegant, dinner-club setting of the Triple Door, Carlile and her band played 10 acoustic songs, most from her new album, also called "The Story."

Flanked by Phil and Tim Hanseroth, the twins who play bass and guitar, Carlile cut loose on new songs like "Josephine," "Late Morning Lullaby" and "Turpentine." All are well-constructed songs, drifting effortlessly between pop rock and country.

Plenty of bands can write and play these sort of songs. But precious few are powered by the vocal talent possessed by Carlile, so wide-ranging, so clear, so richly evoking life's delicious highs and punishing lows.

While her new album (produced by T Bone Burnett) is strong from top to bottom, her talent — dramatic, almost disquieting — is fully unveiled on the title track. As good as "The Story" sounds on the CD, to hear Carlile nail it live, as she did on Friday night, is to experience a little slice of pop heaven.

Carlile was chatty and humorous in between songs, telling stories, often thanking her slightly-rowdy audience (many are used to seeing her in Seattle bars, like Queen Anne's Paragon), cracking jokes. After she sang "The Story," one would think she left herself nowhere else to go.

She had another trick up her sleeve, though, and broke out "Folsom Prison Blues," and delivering a charged-up version of the Johnny Cash classic.

I hear that train a rollin', and it's coming to take Brandi Carlile to stardom...

After hitting the road, Carlile returns to play the Moore Theater on June 1.

Tom Scanlon: tscanlon@seattletimes.com