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WEDNESDAY

My Morning Jacket is to Grandaddy and Whiskeytown as a soft country rain is to a bucket of half-melted ice being dumped on your head as you’re walking hand in hand with your sweetheart in a soft country rain. At first listen to the Kentucky quintet’s newest release, a double CD titled At Dawn, I admit, a sigh of resignation escaped my lips. The alt-country genre is overflowing these days, and lots of its shaggy, sincere purveyors sound too much like their brethren. Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing….But I digress: The more I listened, the more curious I became, and then I read about the band’s having been born of frustration with its local music scene and I was sympathetic and sold. There’s a ton of really sweet, rough, heartstring-tugging music out there, and My Morning Jacket just happens to have created a nice chunk of it. The band plays at 10 p.m. at the Metro Cafe, 1522 14th St. NW. $7. (202) 588-9118. (Arika Casebolt)