Lung of Love

Amy Ray’s sixth studio solo album explores the more hewn textures of her songcraft. Mostly musing on amorous trials and tribulations, Lung of Love opens with “When You’re Gone, You’re Gone”: an Americana-tinged folk-rocker where reverb-soaked slide guitars melt like candle wax over acoustic strumming and a meaty rhythm section. “Glow” follows this with distortion-saturated electric guitars and a more assertive rhythm; combined with Ray’s confident vocal approach, it could easily pass for early-'90s indie rock, right down to the Juliana Hatfield–sounding “Bah-bah-bahs” in the tune’s catchy chorus. “I Didn’t” simmers down with rootsy tones warming up the song like the glowing vacuum tubes of a vintage amp. Old Wurlitzer notes and an electric guitar tremolo glow like embers under sprawled blankets of congruous vocal harmonies. A playful mandolin introduces “The Rock Is My Foundation,” a bluegrass-flavored front-porch jam that sounds like an antiquated public-domain standard. Some subtle analog keyboard parts complement the breezy guitars of the title track.