Giveon, ‘Twenties’
“Thought that if I put you first enough / we would last for sure,” Giveon laments, with neat wordplay, in a vintage-style soul ballad complete with strings and electric sitar. The reminiscences quickly lead into recriminations over “six years gone down the drain,” and none of the retro trappings cushion the pain. PARELES
Moses Sumney featuring Syd and Meshell Ndegeocello, ‘Hey Girl(s)’
Moses Sumney has revamped “Hey Girl,” a slow-jam come-on from his 2024 album “Sophcore,” to make it more gender-fluid by handing over verses to guests. Syd teases, “You say you ain’t done this before,” and Meshell Ndegeocello moves evolutionary goal posts, intoning, “I am not a woman, I am not a man / I am a water- and carbon-based life form you’ll never comprehend.’ The track’s easy-rolling syncopation and suavely supportive horn arrangement welcome them all. PARELES
Coi Leray, ‘Keep It’
Coi Leray is equal parts tearful and enraged in “Keep It,” her indictment of a cheater: “Should’ve kept it real but you were fraudulent / Everything you said you did the opposite.” Her only accompaniment is calm piano chords and wisps of her own voice. She almost breaks down, wondering, “Why, why, why, why, why?” But then she summons her dignity and ends things. PARELES
Sleeper’s Bell, ‘Bad Word’
What happens to a relationship that survives a betrayal? Blaine Teppema, the songwriter for the Chicago duo Sleeper’s Bell, captures the lingering wounds, self-doubt and distrust in “Bad Word” from the new album “Clover.” Her voice is breathy and tentative over modestly strummed acoustic guitar and drums, as she sings “We got right back together / Now you treat her name like a bad word.” For the moment, she’s willing to go along. “One day I might know what it is you think,” she shrugs. “Till then I’ll laugh it off.” PARELES
Waxahatchee, ‘Mud’
Katie Crutchfield, the songwriter behind Waxahatchee, rarely escapes ambivalence. The cozy, countryish, banjo-picking march of “Mud” has MJ Lenderman and Spencer Tweedy singing along with Crutchfield as she tries to sever a guardian-angel relationship where “I might beam with empty virtue / but I’m a feather blowing in your storm.” The problem is that the “girl suffering” might be herself. PARELES
