[BRASH FOLK] Jared Mees opens his debut, If You Wanna Swim with the Sharks…, with the kind of acoustic-guitar strum that makes each note pop out separately, like some sort of audio-PowerPoint presentation illustrating what happens when pick meets string. And that prickly, down-home yet brash tone is held throughout the album, which takes on forms reminiscent of some of indie-folk’s best: Okkervil River’s Will Sheff, Kind of Like Spitting’s Ben Barnett and, most of all, Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst.

Though Mees channels all three of these songwriters, Sharks hardly comes off derivative. Even when he slurs his speech and lets his vocals fall into kiddy-talk land—a decidedly Oberstian thing to do—on that first track, “Suicide Squeeze,” it’s only for a moment: Likewise, on “Cockleburs & Hay,” which has an angry, ominous vibe much like Okkervil River’s “Westfall” or Bright Eyes’ “Sunrise, Sunset,” Mees only sets a similar mood, slyly reminding listeners of those artists without overstaying his welcome in familiar territory. And when Mees adopts the wide-mouthed, biting delivery of KOLS’ Barnett, he still spits out verses that are sharply, uniquely, his own.

On the anthemic “Working & Drinking,” for instance, Mees’ world-weary take on blue-collar life includes such pointed observations as, “I’m the man of my dreams/ When I’m dreamin’.” And though his inflection hints at Cursive’s Tim Kasher or Love As Laughter’s Sam Jayne (the song also employs a very Bright Eyes-ish choir-of-friends section), the feelgood vibe of the music—complete with hooks galore, slop-pop drums, hard-hitting guitar and a meandering, melodic lead—is surprising, making Mees’ ode to “Jack and Jim,” cigarettes and friends come off far more celebratory than, say, Oberst’s “Well Whiskey.”

Sharks’ success ultimately comes down to Mees’ ability to embody both youth and wisdom: When he sings, “We might fall in love/ We might get in a fight/ But we’re all breakin’ even/ At the end of the night” (from “The Strange Demise of Jerome Nobles”), it’s clear experience has earned Mees that knowledge. From the clever, life-is-a-stage rocker “Live Fiction” to the half-spoken folk anthem “Julai Throwback,” Mees weaves enough compelling tidbits into his seemingly reckless songs to avoid sounding immature. Even when he haphazardly sings, “Halle-fuckin’, halle-fuckin’-lujah! Cele-fuckin’-bration! Congratu-fuckin’-ations! Kum-ba-fuckin’-ya!” it sounds smart, and—most of all—it sounds like Jared Mees.