It doesn’t feel like it’s been that long since the last proper studio album from Waxahatchee, but it has. The sterling Saint Cloud was released on the last week of March 2020, which placed it directly into the COVID time wrap that makes all the pop culture ensnarled in it seem like it happened just yesterday and somehow a million years ago. The appearance of “Right Back at It” heralds a new Waxahatchee album on the horizon, releasing almost exactly four years after its predecessor.

That span of time represents the artist’s longest gap between albums, but Katie Crutchfield, who more or less is Waxahatchee, kept busy and present enough in the interim. There were new songs here and there, including a few added to a deluxe edition of Saint Cloud that was peddled to help promote a tour when COVID restrictions finally waned enough to allow a return to music venues. More prominently, Crutchfield teamed with Jess Williamson for an apparent one-off under the name Plains. That album, I Walked with You a Ways, was first-rate, and, as with Willamson’s subsequent solo effort, the new music from Waxahatchee carries welcome echoes of the tender, twangy beauty that was conjured by the duo.

“Right Back to It” is an economic, country-tinged tune that wafts along as if held airborne by warm summer breezes. Featuring a guest appearance by indefatigable Ashevillan MJ Lenderman, the song aches with the wounded romanticism of a relationship that endures even as it keeps careening into troublesome areas:” I let my mind run wild/ Don’t know why I do it/ But you just settle in/ Like a song with no end/ If I can keep up/ We’ll get right back to it.” It’s a jukebox weepy for closing time, and it’s lovely as can be.

Tiger’s Blood, the new album from Waxahatchee, is scheduled for release in March.