The title to Ratboys’ new album cracks the code to the intense, precarious emotional state that runs through it. Singin’ to an Empty Chair refers to an established therapeutic practice of speaking to an imaginary person — usually a problematic loved one — to get out all the unexpressed feelings that are creating some level of strife. In this case, it also refers to a specific challenge endured by Julia Steiner, the band’s frontwoman and chief songwriter. At around the time she started working on the material that makes up this album, she was dealing with estrangement from a family member. The album practically trembles with the tension of these roiling personal complications.

Even as the album feels deeply personal, it’s also highly approachable, filled with tuneful, crisply produced indie rock. Chris Walla was behind the boards on The Window, the previous Ratboys album, and returns to the producer role here. He clearly knows how to highlight the band’s strengths. The tracks are taut and finely rendered. The production is obviously meant to showcase the quality of the material rather than obscure its flaws under studio trickery. Steiner’s voice rings out clearly and the contributions of the other band members — guitarist Dave Sagan, bassist Sean Neumann, and drummer Marcus Nuccio — are equally distinguishable and resonant.

The album begins with the appealingly on-the-nose “Open Up,” which has the feel of a band stretching themselves awake after a long slumber. Throats proverbially cleared, they move straight to “Know You Then,” which is firmly within the album’s thesis of familial disfunction. The lyrics strive for empathy with a person caused damage by trying to intuit an understanding of their past: “You were just a kid/ Lost on the school playground/ They would take your lunch and then/ Make fun when you weren’t around.”

Any risk that Singin’ to an Empty Chair could get mired in concept-album doldrums is dodged by the general deftness of Ratboys. Yes, the central idea is threaded all the way through the album, piercing through tracks such as the epic “Just Want You to Know the Truth” (“If I told you I was okay/ Well that would have been a lie/ So, I blocked your telephone/ Without sayin’ goodbye”). Each of the cuts has a life of its own, whether seasoned with new-wave zing (“Anywhere”) or hanging in the same limbo space between pop and country where Jenny Lewis has lately lived (“At Peace in the Hundred Acre Wood”).

Flinty new joys emerge with every fresh listen. Maybe it’s the protest song “Burn It Down” that asserts itself anew (“It’s always been this way/ It’s never gonna change/ So, take your kindling rage/ And throw it on the flame”). Or, some detail of the band’s play might jump out; the sharp, dynamic drumming found on “Light Night Mountains All That” comes to mind. The impression that doesn’t change is that Ratboys sound more assured than ever. If The Window was a breakthrough for Ratboys, Singin’ to an Empty Chair finds the band striding with grand confidence through the opening they knocked into being.