Mean Creek were named "Best Boston band" by Boston Phoenix readers for two years running. Youth Companion, their third full-length album, does its best to live up to these expectations, with a thunderous big-rock sound worthy of a band looking to break out across the nation. Producer Chris McLaughlin—who helmed their debut album, The Sky (Or the Underground)—recorded the group at 1867 Recording Studio, a former Masonic temple. The quartet’s natural chemistry comes blaring out of rockers such as “Do You Know?,” “Come On Before It’s Gone," and “You Were Wrong,” where the intense male-female vocals of Chris Keene and Aurore Ounjian spark reminders of Pixies and X. An R.E.M. jangle lurks under the passion of “Sweet Thing.” Mikey Holland’s drums pace the nostalgic trip of “Young & Wild.” Keene sings in his best Wayne Coyne–like falsetto for the psych-folk of “Indian Summer.”