I’ve mentioned this guy before in my snark-o-rama column in these pages, mainly to let you kids know about Benevento’s shows around the New Hampshire seacoast. The small but determined Royal Potato Family label has tried to hip me to his trip, but there’ve been so many other distractions — what I’m trying to say is that I had no idea this guy’s records were so good, or at least this one is, due out one month before a two-show stop at the Press Room in Portsmouth on Oct. 17 and Oct. 18. No, stop thinking I have any ulterior motive here — I couldn’t care less if I ever got another album or free show invite from this dude ever again, and I don’t care if you decide to try to sardine-can yourself into the million-year-old Press Room to see an actual bona-fide hipster doing his thing, fresh from his stop at the (eyeroll) Bowery Ballroom. I really don’t. But I’m a confirmed non-hater of quirky stuff that’s got power behind it, like Braids, DJ Shadow, Winston Giles, that kind of thing, and this record doesn’t just have great tuneage, it’s weirdly evolutionary, like a stout, bright, pretty mold growing off the side of a Wilco album. No downer-bummer tunes either, which is always a good thing. A —Eric W. Saeger