Sleep With Heat

At first, Lovers were reductively viewed by some as a distaff version of Bright Eyes, with teenage singer/songwriter Carolyn Berk's romantic obsessions (hence the band name) and largely acoustic singer/songwriter musical bent leading the least perceptive of listeners to dismiss them as an adolescent girl's diary entries set to music. That's always done Lovers a disservice, but with their third album, Berk has created her first consistently solid set of songs. Recorded with a stable band lineup (three members of the dream pop outfit Phosphorescent and Parker and Lily's Daniel Rickard), Sleep with Heat is the first Lovers album with a consistent musical vibe to go along with Berk's by now familiar lyrical mood. Downplaying the chamber pop sound of The Gutter and the Garden in favor of an equally ethereal but more assertive blend of hazy textures akin to vintage Rain Parade and Opal, Sleep with Heat is Lovers' closest so far to a traditional indie rock album: the haunting "My Heart Never Sleeps" is at the exact point of triangulation between Liz Phair's lo-fi heart-on-sleeve Exile in Guyville, the Cocteau Twins' dreamy atmospherics, and the druggy but beautiful vibe of Nico's Chelsea Girls. It's an improbable place to be, but Lovers make it feel like home.