Much as try to take a completely open-minded and open-hearted approach the weekly selection of a tracks to appear in this humble digital space on Friday, I have my weaknesses. I am generally helpless before any song that starts small, maybe with wistful acoustic guitar and barely exhaled vocals, and builds and build and builds some more, sounding fuller with ever gear shift. If that song has a romanticized reference to radio, them I’m pretty much done for.

The Ohio band the Ophelias opens their new single “Soft and Tame” with the lines “I was out, the sun on my cheek as I walk around/ Pick up a pear, put it down/ The radio plays a song we loved/ It was dark, October now,” with lead singer Spencer Peppet imbuing the words with strong emotion while still coming across as enticingly aloof. The cut starts as tender indie rock and escalates into a massive mound of sound. The coiled, vulnerable anger of the repeated lyric “I need you to stay the fuck away” is a nice bonus, perfectly evoking the breakup misery that the college-age kid that still haunts my inner being knows oh so well. So, yeah, I’m done for.

Ribbon, the new EP from the Ophelias, is scheduled for release in April.