\n<\/p>\n
Lucy Dacus recognizes that love can be precarious in \u201cBest Guess.\u201d She sings, \u201cI love your body, I love your mind\/They will change, so will mine.\u201d The tempo is measured and the band supplies a subdued folk-rock march as Dacus overcomes self-conscious skepticism to commit: \u201cYou may not be an angel, but you are my girl,\u201d she decides. PARELES<\/p>\n
\u201cStream of Consciousness\u201d will be on the debut solo album by Yukimi Nagano, the singer in the Swedish group Little Dragon. Over a backdrop of gently strummed electric guitars and plush harmony vocals, she sings about an uncertain but determined step forward, with \u201cQuestions about what my future holds now \/ And thoughts of where I\u2019ll end up, where I\u2019ll be.\u201d Then she\u2019s joined by Lianne La Havas as an alter ego or fellow traveler: \u201cHope that all this is worth it,\u201d they sing together. PARELES<\/p>\n
Sampled, manipulated vocal syllables and the trained voices of the contemporary vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth accompany Rebekka Karijord in \u201cSanctuary,\u201d an eerie, futuristic lullaby sung to her daughter. It contemplates the climate disaster faced by the next generations: \u201cHas the ocean reached your doorstep, and the sun turned hostile?,\u201d she wonders, and she mourns: \u201cOur sanctuary\u2019s broken.\u201d PARELES<\/p>\n
\u201cAutomatic,\u201d the new album by the Lumineers, plunges into the torments of a breakup: regrets, recriminations, self-doubt, shattered assumptions, lingering need. In \u201cYou\u2019re All I\u2019ve Got,\u201d Wesley Schultz bemoans the loss of \u201cAll the years we walked hand in hand\u201d over strummed minor chords and tolling piano notes. Even as he knows it\u2019s over, he makes a falsetto plea: \u201cYou\u2019re all that I got \/ And I can\u2019t give it up like Sisyphus below the rock.\u201d PARELES<\/p>\n
William Tyler, from Tennessee, deploys folky guitar and sophisticated electronic production in his instrumental tracks. \u201cConcern,\u201d from his next album \u201cTime Indefinite,\u201d turns cyclical guitar chords into something like chimes; it also toys with pitch shifts and, eventually, draws in the sounds of old tape recordings of a choir to suggest the beginnings of an anthem. PARELES<\/p>\n<\/div>\n