Savannah College of Art and Design, "the university for creative careers," certainly does a good job creating events for its students and alumni.

The annual SCAD New Alumni Concert, held each year in Forsyth Park, is usually the talk of not only SCAD students, but the entire Savannah music-loving community. Mostly because it's free and open to the public, and usually consists of a stellar lineup.

For the 2014 edition, the bill is pretty diverse. Singer/songwriter Brett Dennen is set to open, with Savannah favorite alt-country rockers Lucero to follow. Headlining this year will be Grammy-nominated indie rockers Mutemath.

Mutemath returns to Savannah for their second show in the Hostess City. They played Trustees Theater in February 2010 a few months after finishing their second album, "Armistice."

The New Orleans-based rock group consisting of Paul Meany (vocals and keyboards), Todd Gummerman (guitar), Darren King (drums) and Roy Mitchell-Cardenas (bass), are currently at work on their fourth studio album, a follow-up to 2011's "Odd Soul."

Meany admitted the SCAD show will probably be one of the last shows of an era for the band, before a show featuring the new material is hashed out this summer and debuted in August.

"We're at the place where we're still imagining everything," Meany said. "We're still in the process of creating the new show and new presentation. It's not quite ready to go. (The SCAD concert) will be more of the older show we play.

"Every new collection of songs marks a new chapter," Meany continued. "It kind of commemorates a certain moment in time for your band. This show is, what I think, the most blatant expression of that. It's probably going to be the last time you see this show in its form before we move on to the next one. It's an end of the school year thing, and an end of a Mutemath era too."

Centered around "Odd Soul," the show will probably dip into the band's earlier collection, as well, with some of the more popular songs like "Blood Pressure," "Control" and "Typical." In 2007, a video for the latter was nominated for a Grammy.

"Odd Soul" saw Mutemath finding influence in their hometown, with soul and jazz undertones parading throughout the album. As a rock band that flirts with pop music and seems to be influenced by a variety of genres, they don't echo New Orleans music in the same way as other acts, like the Marsalis brothers.

"We're certainly not a reflection of traditional New Orleans music in any way," Meany said. I think we're probably a little disconnected from it, as most people are aware of what New Orleans music is all about. But we love it. We're fans of it. We certainly draw inspiration from it, and sort of go to our own place with it.

"'Odd Soul' is probably the most blatant record we've made that we really allowed ourselves to go there in a fresh way for us," Meany continued. "It was all about kind of digging into where music and life started for us. We wanted to tell stories and capture music as we first remembered it and drew from it. It was a lot of fun."

In the same sense, Lucero is a reflection of their hometown, Memphis, Tenn., but in a far more brazen manner, and for a little longer.

The original quartet of Ben Nichols (guitar and vocals), Roy Berry (drums), John C. Stubblefield (bass) and Brian Venable (guitar) are still the hard-gigging, alt-country heroes they were 15 years and eight albums ago.

Lucero last played Savannah to a sold-out crowd at The Jinx in January of this year, and are no strangers to the Lowcountry, as they continue a rigorous touring schedule of well over 100 shows throughout the year.

The band's most recent release, "Women & Work," paid homage to their hometown with full horn section and a sound reminiscent of the early days of Memphis rock 'n' roll.

"We're always searching for things to keep it new and fresh for us," Stubblefield said. "Over the last 15 years, we've not been afraid to branch out and try new things to try and keep it fresh for us, and it translates to the listener, as well. It's still the same four original guys over the course of the 15 years. It's an actual band. You're going to have that coherent sound quality and chemistry of a band, rather than a group."

Dennen, a Northern California native, is touring on his fifth studio album, "Smoke and Mirrors," released in October.

The pop/folk act's career dates back to 2004 and has included gigs at the Newport Folk Festival and "Late Show with David Letterman" and tours with John Mayer. For the new NBC comedy "About a Boy," Dennen provided the theme song "Comeback Kid (That's My Dog)."

"Smoke and Mirrors" peaked on the Billboard 200 at No. 65, and at No. 10 on Billboard's Top Independent Albums chart, as well as No. 19 on Billboard's Top Rock Albums chart.