SORRY COSPLAY (Domino) — If the U.K. band Sorry is engaged in the activity that provides the title to their third album, it’s not entirely clear which guise they’re donning. Maybe all of them at once? There are certainly some instances where it’s a little more clear what they discovered after rummaging through the costume trunk: “Jetplane” samples Guided By Voices to build a vividly agitated miasma, and “Waxwing” reappropriates lyrics from Toni Basil’s “Mickey” into its fabulous freakout. Asha Lorenz and Louis O’Bryen are the main drivers of the group, though they often bring in additional collaborators to get the songs over the finish line. Understandably then, everything on COSPLAY has the feel of a magnet with lots of random sonic metals clinging to it. If that description makes the band’s output seem chaotic, it’s not. The songs are tight as clenched fits, even as they are wildly exploratory. “Life in This Body” starts out withdrawn and achingly fragile before swelling to an expressive fullness, like a wounded person coming out of a defensive crouch, and “Magic” is weirdly like Pink Floyd trying their hand at spare sunshine pop. Sometimes the music saunter (“Candle”) and sometimes it’s brash and exuberant (“Today Might Be the Hit”). It always impresses. There’s reason for Sorry to dress up as anyone but themselves. Get gussied up with these tracks: “Echoes,” “Love Posture,” “Antelope,” and “Into the Dark.”

THE MOUNTAIN GOATS Through This Fire Across from Peter Balkan (Cadmean Dawn) — It was probably only a matter of time before John Darnielle just went ahead and wrote a musical. Through This Fire Across from Peter Balkan, the twenty-third album billed to the Mountain Goats, tells the story of a ship’s crew that is devastated by a storm, leaving only a few survivors shipwrecked. Darnielle really locks in his conceit, right down to opening the album with an overture. Apart from bringing Lin-Manuel Miranda to guest on few tracks, the Mountain Goats don’t bend towards Broadway all that much. The music is still wholly recognizable as the output of this venerable band: the sprightly melodies, the impressively detailed lyrics, and the obvious headlong joy in just playing rock tunes to get the complicated feelings out. “Your Glow” is probably the closest they come to shifting their style to suit the storyline, only because it comes across a little like a forlorn sea shanty set to a smooth electronica groove. The tracks most pinball around familiar bumpers. “Cold at Night” has a new wave shimmer, and “Peru” is a fine example of the band’s steady-state balladry. As always, it’s Darnielle’s lyrics that really stick. On “Rocks in My Pockets,” Darnielle croons, “I carried a stone in my pocket/ Something I found in Seattle/ It vaguely resembled a face/ And it looked like a headstone a little.” It’s simple and evocative at once, basically Darnielle’s wheelhouse. The Mountain Goats have earned a warm curtain call. Feel the heat of these cuts: “Dawn of Revelation,” “Armies of the Lord,” and “Broken to Begin With”