The Red and the Black, Northeast's cozy jambalaya joint, added some more Southern flavor to their menu last night: Cackalackee (that’s “Carolina” to you Yankees) natives Mikal Evans and Sweater Weather, served up with a side of The Foreign Press. The Foreign Press aren’t exactly Southern, unless your definition of the South includes D.C. (and yes, we're below the Mason-Dixon line), but lead singer Andy Fox’s Stephen Malkmus-style delivery has earned FP comparisons to Pavement’s countrified offshoot, Silver Jews.

We were wondering why half the crowd cleared out for the headliners, Sweater Weather. Then we realized that half the crowd was Sweater Weather, a Chapel Hill collective composed of seven people. Eight, if you count the guy that stood offstage with a wind-chime. SW featured an accordion, a glockenspiel and a cello last night, and have been known to employ the djembe as well. Watching these fresh-faced kids set up their stage felt like walking in on high school band practice.

In case you couldn’t tell from their choice of instruments, Sweater Weather is a band with grand conceits. Some of their songs are over 10 minutes long, and wax and wane into different movements, like mini-symphonies. The mastermind behind these lofty ideas is frontman Casey Trela, who looks like an indie rock Jake Gyllenhaal and sounds something like Chris Crisci of The Appleseed Cast.

In the formidable tradition of Southern music collectives like Elephant 6 and The Polyphonic Spree, Sweater Weather have found harmony in chaos. They’re currently working on their first LP, and are likely to become darlings of the press. Next time they pass through D.C., look for them at a larger venue, like the Black Cat or the Rock and Roll Hotel.

It’s a small miracle that a project so ambitious from such young musicians is a success. It’s easy to imagine all the disparate elements of the group churning out cacophonous mush. Instead, the ensemble is remarkably in sync, a unified front of argyle and pumas. It’s tough to pin down Sweater Weather: their songs are at times slow and meandering, at other times thrashing and forceful. Lindsay Ellerbe’s cello adds soothing accents to the slower moments, Tim Phillips’ trumpet lends a rollicking, marching-band feel, and Bobby Sweatt’s percussion is a force to be reckoned with. His drum solo on the song “The Things I Do and the Things I Should” is the sonic version of a seizure. And that’s a good thing.

Sweater Weather were consistently great, but the two opening acts were more of a mixed bag. First up was Appalachian folkstress Mikal Evans, who sings doleful songs while strumming on a guitar, sometimes electric, sometimes acoustic. Evans’ style is best summed up by an observation from one audience member: “This reminds me of a really good P.J. Harvey song.” Well, Evans may drop her “g”s more than Harvey does, but the point is that it’s tough to do the indie-singer/songwriter shtick without blending in with the likes of Joss Stone, Liz Phair, and oodles of other talented women. To her credit, Ms. Evans has sincerity by the bucket. Like her raspy voice, her melodies seem to prize honesty over prettiness. A prime example of this is the gloomy, emotive, “The Old Broken Tune that Saved Me,” a standout song that will be featured on her forthcoming album, slated for release this fall.

The guys from the second act, the Foreign Press, look a bit older than your average indie rock band. We admit to being skeptical that they would put on an energetic show. But their lively, rhythmically driven songs proved us wrong. Their best song of the evening, “Tuscaloosa” featured a dynamic pitter-patter intro from drummer John Howard. Howard, bassist Scott Griset, and guitarist Dave Jones have been playing together for years, and a strong cohesion powers their songs. Vocalist Andy Fox, a newer addition to the Foreign Press, throws off the band’s balance with nasally spoken-word or off-key singing that detracts from otherwise great songs. Standing off to the side, Fox isn’t really much of a frontman. It’s as if the rest of the band knows they would function better as a three-piece.

Photo courtesy of Raul Zahir de Leon, Echelon Productions.