Brothers and 's work as has always been rooted in a power pop sensibility borrowed directly from the songwriting greats of the '70s. Their albums took different paths within the scope of that influence, with 2018's presenting a glammed-up take on Broadway musical pop and 2020's turning up the radio rock energy with aggressive melodies and polished production straight from the era when dominated the charts. Their fourth album, , finds changing directions yet again, turning the volume down and exploring a more sentimental side of their '70s-informed songwriting style. Acoustic guitars and subtle orchestral flourishes are everywhere throughout the album, beginning with the -esque "When Winter Comes Around." The song starts plainly, with simple folksy chord progressions and a steady, melancholic vocal that soon blooms into harmonizing. Before long, the arrangement erupts into a booming, almost anthemic outburst of percussion and a -like Walls of Sound. This reverb-heavy maximalism shows up again on the aching "What Happens to a Heart," with overdubbed strings swirling around multiple drum tracks and layers of other overlapping sounds. It's a knowingly dizzying effect, the same sound achieved on his '70s productions for , , and . cycles between huge, bombastic statements like these, straightforward / -like jangle rock nuggets like "Ghost Run Free," and far more sensitive fare. It's the especially gentle songs that show the band's progression the most. "Any Time of Day" is one of the album's most gripping moments, channeling the precision falsetto vocals of '70s soft rock and twisting that familiar sound around an ambitiously constructed song. The hooks arrive one after another and the key change at the end pushes the song's catchiness over the top. The softer songs on the album see return to some of the Baroque pop influences they built their earliest albums on, but clear away some of the extraneous sounds that could clutter that material. Songs like the title track or the send-up "New to Me" are purposefully minimal, leaving more space for listeners to zero in on the sad, pristine beauty that serves as an emotional baseline for the entire album. ~ Fred Thomas