Half Smile (2002)

Sometimes half-baked but never halfhearted, these London folk balladeers are acoustic-sincere but electrifyingly emotional just beneath their calm surface. Love brings agony (''Bed of Rice,'' ''Half Smile,'' ''Let Alone Me'' -- heck, most of the album), relieved only by the catharsis of putting the pain to pretty music. Sometimes overwrought lyrically and underdone melodically, Half Smile takes on an urgency and poignance upon repeated listenings.