RYAN DAVIS & THE ROADHOUSE BAND New Threats from the Soul (Sophomore Lounge / Tough Love) — On the sophomore album from Ryan Davis & the Roadhouse Band, the songs have the vastness of wall-to-wall carpeting in a ballroom. The seven tracks add up to almost an hour of music, and an individual song with a runtime shorter than than seven minutes is a rarity. If that implies material of jammy indulgence, the opposite is true. Even at extended length, the songs are strangely lean and economical while also dense with ideas and complex lyrics. The instances of slacker sprawl — the little Dead jam that closes “Mutilation Springs” is an example — are few and fleeting. The little doses of oddity around the fringes are counterbalanced by the general solidity of the songcraft; “Mutilation Falls” is like a missing track from a Dan Deacon reimagining of Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here, and yet it also comes across like something the most staid folk rock act would feel comfortable strummoing the corner of a coffee house. Davis’s songwriting and performing style call to mind Father John Misty or John Grant with more of a grounding in roots rock. The words have a mordant wit, and the music is distinctive in its dramatic flair. Davis has a particular flair for lyrics that are a tower of colorful details, as on the album-opening title cut: “But I thought that I could make a better life with bubblegum and driftwood/ Her sweet nothings were nothing more than debts I would owe.” New Threats from the Soul is a artistic house made from sturdy planks that just so happen to have grains of ornate swirl. Fortify yourself with the following cuts: “Better If You Make Me,” “The Simple Boy,” and “Crass Shadows (at Walden Pawn).”

ALLO DARLIN’ Bright Nights (Fika Recordings / Slumberland) — It’s been more than a decade since Allo Darlin’ released their third album, We Come from the Same Place. They subsequently announced that the band was breaking up. Like a pop hook that won’t leave the brain, the allure of performing together wouldn’t quite go away, and a series of reunion shows in 2023 led to the quartet reconvening to lay down new songs. The resulting album, Bright Nights, is not a return to form so much as a welcome continuation of the frightfully intelligent, emotionally acute melodic storytelling that set the band apart in the first place. The intervening years have only made their sound more textured. For example, “Tricky Questions” like one of the soft-soul gems found on the Crooklyn soundtrack transmogrified into indie pop. Mostly, the album distinguishes itself with the vivid clarity of frontwoman Elizabeth Morris’s lyrics, always the group’s strongest attribute. “Northern Waters” suggests that Morris has been studying the elegant storytelling songs of her fellow Australian Paul Kelly, and the title cut feels like vintage 10,000 Maniacs in its jamboree warmth: “After the storm had torn down their houses/ After the floods had washed them away/ A family of musicians find their instruments/ And begin to play.” The nights are indeed bright. Cast a light on these cuts: “Leaving in the Spring,” “Historic Times,” and “Slow Motion.”