While
St. Paul & the Broken Bones
' fourth album,
The Alien Coast
, saw the onetime rapturous retro-soul group make strides in their transition toward more retrained, reflective, psychedelic-leaning neo-soul,
Angels in Science Fiction
, arriving a little over a year later, comes the closest yet to a full transformation. Their most tender, intimate album yet, it doubles as a series of letters written by singer
Paul Janeway
to his then-unborn daughter at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The 12-track album materialized relatively quickly: The band constructed the songs in a matter of a couple months and recorded them at Sam Phillips Recording Studio in Memphis (with producer
Matt Ross-Spang
), with the baby's delivery date in September 2020 lighting a fire. Playing out almost like a concept album, it begins with "Chelsea," a lyrical ballad with chord-progression-marking piano accompaniment that acts as a kind of theatrical exposition. After opening with the line "I hope you get your mother's eyes," it also introduces recurring otherworldly themes with its references to stars, planets, and angels. The album then locks into a midtempo groove with the cautionary "City Federal Building," a spacy, strings-embellished entry that leads into a legitimate slow jam, "Magnolia Trees." The rest of the album joins those tracks in dwelling among the slower tempo ranges while reflecting on the good and bad that likely await in nature, society, and
Janeway
's hometown of Birmingham, Alabama. Along the way, he comes closest to belting old-school-style on the looser "Oporto-Madrid Blvd," and he's perhaps at his most poignant on the minimalist "Lonely Love Song," which may do more than the former to showcase his skills as a vocalist. "Marigold," an
Elton John
-like orchestral piano ballad named for
's daughter, closes
, leaving fans to wonder what may come next for the group beyond the parting words, "I don't want you to be alone/But I gotta go, I've got a show." ~ Marcy Donelson