SHARON VAN ETTEN & THE ATTACHMENT THEORY Sharon Van Etten & the Attachment Theory (Jagjaguwar). As long as Sharon Van Etten has decided, sixteen years after she made her proper bow on the music scene with the debut album Because I Was in Love, that her newest music is properly billed as a group effort with a backing band dubbed the Attachment Theory, it only seems right to devote a few word to who else contributes to their collective self-titled effort. The Attachment Theory is made up of Jorge Balbi on drums, Devra Hoff on bass and guitar (and synths for the downright bouncy “track “Indio”), and Teeny Lieberson on keyboards (and taking up Hoff’s guitar duties that one time she switches over to keys). The group coheres into a symbiotic unit that feels like an extension of Van Etten’s evolution across her past few albums while also staking out some riveting new territory. There are certainly passages where Van Etten gets into a zone familiar enough to keep the change-averse faithful from revolting: the quietly anthemic “Live Forever” and spare, stately “Fading Beauty.” More often, the group plows through a sonic briar patch. Van Etten pushes her vocals into a Siouxsie zone on “I Can’t Imagine (Why You Feel This Way)” and there’s a Girls Against Boys inverted post-punk vibe to “Idiot Box.” These are raw, uncertain times, and Sharon Van Etten and the Attachment Theory is calibrated to properly meet them. Get attached to the following cuts: “Afterlife,” “Somethin’ Ain’t Right,” and “I Want You Here.”

HEARTWORMS Glutton for Punishment (Speedy Wunderground) — Josephine Orme has been climbing the U.K. music biz ladder a few rungs at a time over the course of the past couple years. Performing as Heartworms, taken from the 2017 album by the Shins, she released a string of buzzy single and then a critically acclaimed EP, all while leveling up to increasingly impressive touring gigs. Now, the real test: the daunting debut full-length. Glutton for Punishment is a grim and grandiose tour through Orme’s polymathic influences. A native Londoner who can claim Afghan, Pakistani, Danish, and Chinese heritage, Orme is clearly content with embracing all the varied parts of her artistic self simultaneously, though the unifying factor seems to be sounds that attracted heavily mascaraed record buyers back in the day. “Just to Ask a Dance” is heavily dramatic and awash in a goth-disco swirl, and “Jacked” builds in size and intensity, like a post-punk snowball racing down a mountainside. Working with producer Dan Carey, Heartworms crafts tracks that are polished and precise. That approach is to the great benefit of the racing , house-adjacent “Warplane.” Similarly, it’s hard to imagine the mini-epic “Smugglers Adventures” working without a skilled collaborator on the other side of the studio glass. Orme’s creative ambition is sizable. On this album, it’s also realized. Hop up a few more rungs. Gorge on the following cuts: “Mad Catch,” “Celebrate,” and the album-closing title cut.