Sarah Borges and the Broken Singles

Had Boston-based singer Sarah Borges come along in the mid-1960s, she surely would have been roped into the Capitol stable alongside like-minded mavericks such as Wanda Jackson, Merle Haggard and Buck Owens. Ten years later, she might have been part of the Stiff cartel; in the ’80s, Slash and Twin/Tone would have fought over her. That Borges’s second album, Diamonds in the Dark, has just been issued by Sugar Hill only furthers the argument that roots music is the new punk.

Blessed with brassy pipes and charisma aplenty, Borges is irresistible in “The Day We Met,” a jangly ode to new love that could easily be one of the summer’s top singles. But she’s just as capable of selling a line like “I’m always the girl that they dance with / But I’m never the one that they want to take home,” the tear-soaked refrain in “Belle of the Bar.” Borges surrounds her catchy original tunes with shrewdly chosen covers associated with Dolly Parton (“False Eyelashes”), X (“Come Back to Me”) and George Cartwright (“Stop and Think It Over”).

Guitarist Mike Castellana provides spit-shined twang and broken-hearted steel, while bassist Binky and drummer Rob Dulaney lay down whip-crack beats and lazy shuffles. Producer Paul Q. Kolderie, a veteran of sessions with the Pixies, Radiohead and Uncle Tupelo, adds atmospheric touches here and there but mostly adheres to a useful old maxim: Less is more. — Steve Smith

Sarah Borges and the Broken Singles play Joe’s Pub Wed 13.