Julie & The Wrong Guys - Julie & The Wrong Guys LP

If you've gotten to know Julie Doiron's music through her many solo records, you might well view her as a scruffy chronicler of heartbreak and melancholy — the sort who assesses a breakup by singing, "You got the hard consolation prize / For having to survive." But the New Brunswick singer-songwriter got her start amid heavier sounds, as she first made her name with the sweetly ragged, distortion-infused rock of the Sonic Youth-inspired band Eric's Trip. Still, the crustily charming churn of Doiron's new album — a self-titled debut for her band Julie & The Wrong Guys — comes as a bit of surprise in light of the softer, sadder work she'd often done in the decade and a half following the demise of Eric's Trip. "Love and Leaving" kicks off Julie & The Wrong Guys with a chunk of scuffed-up candy worthy of her 1990s work; for all the grit and gristle of the riffs that surround her, the singer gives the track a veneer of summery sweetness. "Calm Before the Storm" is book-ended by com