Alexandria folk singer D.C. Sills highlights an interesting phenomenon on Better When I’m Loved, her first full length album. She, like so many folk singers, strives for a seemingly artless musical voice—something real-er than pop and rock ’n’ roll—but ends up just as artificial anyway. Like confessional poetry, the goal here is honesty, but the writing is inevitably mediated by the conventions of folk. It’s hard not to feel like there are occasions when Sills is adjusting her feelings and thoughts to the language, voice, stance and subject matter of the self-expressive folk song. The results here are fine, but they’re indistinct. The title cut is the strongest, with a genuinely entertainingly phrased thought that is memorable, and the rest is warm and well meant, which is much better than crappy and cynical.