I think it’s the probing, slightly spooky synth line opening the song that takes me back to the college wonderments of decades past. And yet “Sad Cowboy,” the new single from Goat Girl, doesn’t sound like a throwback to me. It’s not trading in nostalgia for other times like other current retro specialists. The track is decisively made for the now, including lyrics that address the discombobulated state that comes from living through a time when the sowing of doubt is an active political strategy (“Slipping my hold/ It comes and it goes/ The feeling we’re told, cannot be so”). I can hear echoes of other artists, but they fade quickly, and Goat Girl asserts themselves as utterly unique.

All Fours, the sophomore album from Goat Girl, is schedule for release in late January, 2021.