rock/pop

Despite his New York driver's license, I like to think of Bill Ricchini's grandly orchestrated, autumnal, melancholic pop as a continuation of his Philadelphia roots, those that made Todd Rundgren's Something/Anything? something more. While the arrangements of Ricchini's new Tonight I Burn Brightly (Megaforce) are laced with the Wurlitzer lines and beauteous horns, chamber-ish strings and glockenspiel that reference The Left Banke, Brian Wilson and The Kinks' Village Green era, there's some Todd in there. More fleshed out than his debut, Ordinary Time, the new album delivers a wall of cold, weathered melody and weary harmony around what Ricchini sees as a theme. "It opens with a prayer lullaby and ends in salvation," says Ricchini. "It's about finding the good, having a little faith. Glasses half-full." While his baby-step narratives are touched by the icy demeanor of say, Raymond Carver, it's the blunt, sweet romantics of the Runt that stand out through loose narratives about riding the Frankford El and having sex — the latter subject embraced on "When the Morning Comes." "I wanted to be a storyteller this time around but learned too late that I'm too emotional for that," says Ricchini. "So I wound up confessional instead."

Sat., Aug. 27, 10 p.m., $10, with The Capitol Years, Buried Beds and 1000, Tin Angel, 20 S. Second St., 215-928-0770, www.tinangel.com. Also in-store at 3 p.m., A.K.A. Records, 27 N. Second St.