Young Hunger

When Jonquil frontman Hugo Manuel changed his stage name to Chad Valley, his music also underwent a noticeable transformation. While the former project balanced lo-fi bedroom recordings with sleek New Romantic indie pop, the latter takes on a more pristine production and adds some butter-smooth R&B. “I Owe You This” opens with sparkling yacht-rock tones melting and crystallizing over icy keyboards, with Valley taking ownership of an alluring voice that’s fluid like Michael McDonald’s (with the soulful emotion of a young Mick Hucknall of Simply Red fame). Valley’s dynamic vocal range is best exemplified in the falsettos that pepper the romantic “Tell All Your Friends.” That song filters the neon hues of Jonquil’s adoration for A-ha’s 1985 debut album, Hunting High and Low, through a modern, polished studio mix. Cameron Mesirow, a.k.a. Glasser, duets with Valley in “Fall 4 U,” sounding like a young Tracey Thorn; it's an effervescent love song bubbling over with playful keyboards. Anne Lise Frøkedal’s breathy coos invoke some Sade-like moments in the new wave ballad “Fathering/Mothering.”