Erin McCarley calls the music on her debut album, Love, Save the Empty, a document of her search for authenticity in herself and in others. And yet the 11 songs collected here (songs that ignited an industry-wide frenzy when McCarley performed them at SXSW earlier this year) pull off the trick that all great pop performs: They do heavy philosophical lifting with a lightness that boosts the spirit. This is elegantly crafted, deeply melodic music that resounds with echoes of the Beatles and Aimee Mann, Alanis Morissette and Amy Winehouse.