It would be strange to drag Natalie Mering into the conversation and say that she had made Joni or Judee Sill or Carole King weirder or darker because they were all burnt to begin with. Mering mostly just took that California sound—the always lagging drums, the piano stolen from a bar, the denatured bits of film and country—and ran her low, low voice through it all. If John Cale is one of her heroes and collaborators, you have an idea of what’s up, and this is much more Paris 1919 than it is Hejira. I don’t want to disappoint anyone who thinks this album is doomy but I think it’s awfully fun, like Douglas Sirk with a little more sunlight. Shout out to producer Ben Babbitt, who plays Van Dyke Parks to Mering’s Randy Newman here.

– Sasha Frere-Jones