After recently signing with their first major label, Warner Brothers, West-Coast quartet Rilo Kiley have found themselves thrust into the spotlight. Suddenly they’re on everyone’s hot list—not to mention that of Rolling Stone, who listed them among their “Ten Best New Bands.” The band has slowly picked up momentum over the years, beginning with “The Frug,” a pop-novelty song released on the “Desert Blue” soundtrack in 1998, which received play on MTV. Their last album, The Execution of All Things, was a beautifully hushed, melancholy record that helped Rilo Kiley develop the following that launched them to their current status.

Their latest release, More Adventurous, is a straight-up pop record that broadens their sound but doesn’t completely dispose of the fragile beauty that we heard on The Execution of All Things. The group definitely seems ripe for media attention: A cute-girl lead singer who is also a former child actress (“The Wizard”), singing alongside a cool indie-boy, former child actor on Nickelodeon’s “Salute Your Shorts” (he was Pinsky!). But forget all of that. You’re listening to a band with great potential.

On The Execution of All Things, Rilo Kiley’s sound was typically indie rock; it was rainy day music with beautiful hooks, sung in whispering tones by lead singer-songwriters Jenny Lewis and Blake Sennett. More Adventurous rocks more, builds more, and sounds more radio-ready. This is not to say that it’s better. Though the best songs on More Adventurous are better than the best of The Execution of All Things, the latter is still the better album of the two. But Rilo Kiley’s ability to combine beautiful lyrics and hooks with irresistible pop singles is indeed a gift. The album starts out mocking this very thing, with “It’s a Hit,” a song that, like many on the album, starts out lackluster but ends up in a refrain you can’t help but repeat (“It’s a holiday for a hanging”).

The second song “Does He Love You?” could have been left off the album., and sounds very little like the Rilo Kiley fans recognize. “Portions for Foxes” is more like it, with its crackling lyrics and undeniable chorus: “I’m bad news, baby I’m bad news.” “Ripchord” is, sadly, the album’s only contribution from Sennett, who performed two achingly lovely tracks on The Execution of All Things. He sounds here as though he is trying to escape the Elliott Smith comparisons that plagued him after that album, and does so with mediocre results. The song is enjoyable as the softest acoustic tune on the record, but since when was sounding like Elliott Smith a bad thing? Fans of The Execution of All Things will be disappointed.

“I Never” is new territory for Rilo Kiley; it is a ’60s-influenced soul song that works surprisingly well (Jenny Lewis’ voice has never sounded so full). But it will be forgotten with the next track, “Absence of God.” This is the band at their best, and the sound that will make them great in future records. It is a gentle alt-country ballad with beautiful lyrics: “Rob says you love, love, love and then you die. I’ve watched him while sleeping and seen him cry with closed eyes,” and “You’re not happy but you’re funny and I’m trippin’ over my joy.” It is this light touch that is lacking in the more poppy songs on the record, making them less than great. If Lewis is capable of writing lyrics this good, one wonders why she doesn’t do so on all the other tracks.

The rest of the album is smooth sailing for the band, with the only exception being the slightly bland “Accidental Death.” “More Adventurous” is another awe-inspiring alt-country ballad, and Lewis writes some of her best lyrics on “Man/Me/Then Jim.” The album closes with “It Just Is,” a beautiful epitaph to what is a mostly beautiful album. Rilo Kiley’s only mistake on More Adventurous is showing you how much they are capable of, and only delivering half the time. Rolling Stone isn’t the only one who can hear it; they are certainly a band that will be doing great things for a long time to come.