New and noteworthy

First Amendment

The Demonstration Tapes

The album title alludes indirectly to the concept: one song for each of 14 randomly selected U.S. states in commemoration of our nation’s 250th birthday—from Norwegians no less. And not just any Norwegians, but Pedro Carmona-Alvarez, Lars Heintz, and Fredrik Færden of the long-semi-defunct indie act Sister Sonny. With each track sounding like the work of a different but equally playful and catchy band, the music could pass for 40 minutes of high-quality college radio circa 1985–90 (very good years in case you’d forgotten).

Hallelujah! Don’t Let the Devil Fool Ya 

Robert Finley

The production of the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach generates a potent and swampy Stax vibe, making the late-­blooming bluesman Robert Finley’s first album as a septuagenarian his most assertive musical statement to date. It’s also his most assertive statement period. With a conviction and a voice that might’ve brought Screamin’ Jay Hawkins up short, Finley testifies to the transformative power of praise, gratitude, God’s love, the Holy Spirit, joy, waging spiritual warfare, self-denial, and testifying itself. At times, he almost seems to lose himself in what he’s in the midst of. At no point does the music suffer.

Peace to All Who Enter Here, Volume 2 

Josh Garrels

Volume 1 was a response to COVID and its discontents, and it still holds up in its prayerful, folky way. Volume 2 is less follow-up than development. Besides being a third longer and containing three Garrels originals instead of two, the instrumentation and tempos, while not threatening to disturb the promised peace, are on the whole a little more varied and a little more lively—not as lively as Volume 1’s “Peace Like a River,” but also not as dependent on a pandemic to feel like just what the doctor ordered.

Modern Worries

Tyson Motsenbocker

This album is Tyson Motsenbocker’s most ambitious because of its textures, its time signatures, its two soft-­focus instrumentals with nine-word titles, and its nightmarish two-part parable recited by a British woman. (There’s the usual melodic introspection too.) It’s Motsenbocker’s best album because of how skillfully ­melody matches mood and because “I Don’t Want To Be on the Internet Anymore” and the nightmarish two-part parable diagnose a serious, real-life malaise. It’s his least self-aware because the Jesus-protect-me-from-your-followers sentiments of “I’m Doing My Best” are a kind of malaise too.

Encore

Shortly after releasing Peace to All Who Enter Here, Volume 2, Josh Garrels released Forevergreen, a mostly instrumental soundtrack to Nathan Englehardt and Jeremy Spears’ Oscar-nominated animated short of the same name. The dialogue-free film, which Spears has described as a “beat-by-beat representation of how someone gets truly saved,” manages to ­combine elements of Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree, GIGO, Smokey Bear, John 12:24, and John 15:13 in 13 minutes, end credits included.Garrels’ soundtrack (co-­credited to its engineer, co-producer, and orchestrator Isaac Wardell) lasts eight minutes longer because it contains both a with-lyrics version and an orchestra-only version of the opening (and closing) theme, a piece that, with or without words, captures the film’s subtlety and bucolic sense of wonder. And what’s Garrels doing when he’s not singing, i.e., most of the time? Playing banjo, guitar, and charango—and, one suspects, conducting the “Garrels Kids” chorale on “Extended Fun!” —A.O.