Soul doesn't come easy in the lily-white Northwest, but Portland's Brownish Black delivers an astonishingly authentic brand of vintage rough-edged R&B. Anchored by the full-throated belting of singer Vicki Porter and M.D. Sharbatz's rusty-strings guitar tone, the band doesn't try to mimic the polished majesty of '60s Motown like a lot of today's revivalists. (What unsigned act can afford to do so in this economy, anyway?) Instead, it works a sound more indebted to the grittier, more low-rent aesthetic of Stax/Volt and blues-indebted rock outfits like the Animals. The lo-fi quality of its demos work in the group's favor, but a legit studio album—if one ever arrives—could be a sleeper hit.