I don’t know about you, but I was a bit disappointed by last year’s Under the Blacklight, the fourth album from Rilo Kiley–the long-running Los Angeles band co-fronted by singer/multi-instrumentalist Jenny Lewis. In pushing aside their flair for warm, rootsy indie-pop, exchanging it with slick New Wave-y sounds and sleaze-pop grooves, it felt like the band was moving too far away from their well-honed strengths. No such disappointment for Lewis’ brand-new second solo album, Acid Tongue, which arrives two years after the gospel-y, Watson Twin-ned Rabbit Fur Coat and finds our heroine getting her ’70s Laurel Canyon country-pop singer-songwriter on. The new material is so good, in fact, that any notion of Rilo Kiley dissolving and Lewis pursuing this solo thing full-time doesn’t seem like that much of a bummer. Her stellar new backing band–featuring guitarist/boyfriend Johnathan Rice–has been making Acid and Rabbit songs come alive, and who knows? Tonight’s headliner Conor Oberst may even join Jenny to reprise their Rabbit cover of the Traveling Wilburys’ “Handle With Care.” With Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band. Showbox at the Market, 1426 First Ave., 628-3151. 7 p.m., $25. All ages.

Sun., Oct. 26, 7 p.m., 2008