Review: Waxahatchee finds a safe place amid desperation

POP/ROCK

Waxahatchee, “Much Ado About Nothing”

MJ Lenderman’s chiming guitar sparks off the warm tone of Katie Crutchfield’s voice on “Much Ado About Nothing,” a previously unreleased track she’s been playing live on the tour for Waxahatchee’s latest album, “Tiger’s Blood.” “Oh no, I’m down and out, I’m tragically amiss,” Crutchfield sings, reaching to her warbling falsetto. But in the face of her desperation, the song’s laid-back and lived-in arrangement offers a safe place to land.

LINDSAY ZOLADZ, New York Times

Sleater-Kinney, “This Time”

“You can’t break broken/Baby, let it go,” Carrie Brownstein and Corin Tucker sing in “This Time,” a song added to the deluxe edition of Sleater-Kinney’s album “Little Rope,” which was released in January. The track grapples with the ragged ending of a relationship. It’s about reflexively depending on a partner despite knowing better — “If you keep catchin’ me then I’ll keep falling” — and it revs up from a trudging march to a punky, last-chance guitar surge before reluctantly accepting what has changed.

JON PARELES, New York Times

Lauren Mayberry, “Something in the Air”

Mayberry, the frontwoman of the Scottish synth-pop band Chvrches, strikes a note of defiance on “Something in the Air,” a track from her upcoming debut solo album, “Vicious Creature.” “You come up with your stories, conspiracy theories of why we’re all here,” she sings on a soaring pop chorus, before flinging off all that paranoia with some crescendoing synths and a melody that escalates toward liberation.

LINDSAY ZOLADZ, New York Times

Bartees Strange, “Sober”

What once were mainstream pop styles are now indie-rock. In “Sober,” from an album due in February, Bartees Strange reaches back to the sound of Fleetwood Mac circa 1975. The drumming is steady and unflashy yet ready to stoke crescendos; electric piano underpins guitar strumming, and lead guitar leaps out above his voice. In “Sober,” Strange works up to declarations of love and need, cursed with self-consciousness: “Our difference is astounding, running out of things to say/I’m just trying to show love, scared of being cliché.” The band crests alongside him, helping him tell all.

JON PARELES, New York Times

Smile, “Colours Fly”

A brittle 5/4 funk beat, an octave-hopping bass line and an angular guitar line hinting at Arabic modes set up the jittery momentum of “Colours Fly” from the Smile’s second album this year, “Cutouts.” Thom Yorke predicts turbulence — “You can change your mind/Let your colors fly and start lashing out” — and gets it as the track veers toward free jazz and returns even more agitated. “We can’t escape,” he croons.

JON PARELES, New York Times

Lizzy McAlpine, “Spring Into Summer”

The countryish, steady-strumming “Spring Into Summer,” from McAlpine’s new album “Older (and Wiser),” marvels at a lifelong, intimate love: “Nobody knows what it’s like to be us,” she sings, with a touch of wonder in her breathy voice. The track starts out tentative, as if she’s unwilling to believe her good luck, but then rises to a choral affirmation.

JON PARELES, New York Times

New releases

Samara Joy, “Portrait”

Becky G, “Encuentros”

The Offspring, “Supercharged”

Myles Kennedy, “The Art of Letting Go”

The Linda Lindas, “No Obligation”