The leanness of singer/songwriter Laura Veirs' new album, July Flame, was born of considerations both practical and artistic.

On the logistical side, her band "fell apart" since she moved to Portland, Oregon, she said in a phone interview this week. So one goal with this set of songs was "getting back to the root of just a guitar and a voice and seeing what I could do with that again."

Her last album -- 2007's Saltbreakers -- was "really heavily dependent on everybody else being there for the songs to work," she said. Crafting tunes that could be performed in a solo setting meant she could tour the album on the cheap, and with a band if she had the money. (When she plays her Daytrotter.com show on Monday at Huckleberry's in Rock Island, she'll be bringing her band.)

But on an artistic level, "I really like sparse music that still hits you in the gut and does a lot with a little."

When Mondo Drag drummer/singer Johnnie Cluney says that "we're kind of bringing in more of a pop element" to the band's new songs, take that with a giant rock of salt.

The Quad Cities-based band released its full-length debut, New Rituals, on the Alive Naturalsounds Records label last month, and it's a hazy, sludgy affair - bluesy psychedelia borrowing heavily from the 1960s and recalling the contemporary sounds of Dead Meadow.

Yet there are indeed hints of accessible melody in the massive riffs and thick keyboards. "Love Me" hides on its downslope a compelling ascending chorus with heavy vocal emphasis on the downbeat. Calling it poppy is a stretch, but it opens the door to the remainder of the song. "True Visions" has a similar late revelation, with moaning layers of keyboards and guitars as its extended coda.

The quintet - celebrating the release of New Rituals on Saturday at the River Music Experience's Performance Hall - has begun to build a national profile. The band had its Daytrotter.com session released last week, and even though that Web site is based in the Quad Cities, it certainly doesn't play favorites with hometown bands.

To understand some of what makes Dr. Dog sound like it was preserved in amber in the mid-1960s, listen to singer/guitarist/songwriter Scott McMicken talk about drums.

The quintet -- performing a Daytrotter.com show at RIBCO on February 9 -- has a new record (Shame, Shame) due out April 6, and for its sixth studio album it finally enlisted a producer, holing up in a New York studio for nearly a month.

"The real crux of the problem in New York was the drums," McMicken said last month. On previous Dr. Dog albums, which regularly sound 40-plus years old, "the drums aren't really dominant ... very muted."

But on the New York recordings, the drums had a modern microphone configuration -- overkill, in McMicken's view. "The real problem was that you were hearing all 16 microphones at once. I knew if I could put my hands on that console and turn off 75 percent of the mics, we'd probably be getting to hear a really cool drum sound."

Leon Redbone sounds like a relic.

It's not just his repertoire -- mostly songs from the 1910s to the '30s -- but his attitude. Asked in a phone interview last week about the appeal of music that preceded his birth, he gave a curmudgeonly answer. As one moves back in time with music, "you realize that it's not getting any better," said Redbone, who will co-headline a show with guitar whiz Leo Kottke on Saturday at the Capitol Theatre. So he plays songs from the dawn of recorded popular music.