Often, artist handlers pull out the phrase classically trained in an attempt to legitimize pop hacks by pointing at their year of piano lessons or otherwise justifying the existence of overqualified bottom-feeders. (Kip Winger attended Julliard.) Occasionally, though, it's an apt description of a vocalist who forsakes an opera career to make lush, sultry songs informed by impressive instruction. Denali's Maura Davis gives all her quartet's songs an angelic atmosphere, holding heavenly notes even as riffs thrash beneath her. The group's self-titled debut glides without turbulence, using spare guitar lines, measured drum thumps, delicate piano accents and Davis' eerily pitch-perfect vocals to craft tunes that gradually entrance listeners like slowly cast spells. When Davis stretches the phrase lose me over ten seconds, it's not an exercise in oversinging; the command lingers lovingly, gaining momentum during subtle octave changes before ending as perfectly as a splashless dive. Denali shares the bill with 90 Day Men, a group that employs dense instrumental passages and stunning scattershot melodies to achieve similarly hypnotic results.
