Summer Hours

Lux Land's debut album is an intimate, folk-tinged ode to summer, a time of year that inspires nostalgia in all but the wintriest of listeners. Accordingly, these 11 songs spin tales of teenaged romance, deceased lovers, lost childhoods, and other homesick subjects. Land seems to prefer the past over the present — her lyrics are mostly recollections of previous events — and she sings the material with a sort of flower-child elegance, a mix of airy timbre and loose, oscillating vibrato in the vein of Emmylou Harris. Her arrangements owe as much to Sparklehorse's ambient Americana as traditional country, though, and her best songs make room for small electronic flourishes, from the synthesized bassline in "Touching a Legend" to the moody bridge of "Summer Hours." Some sprightly folk-rock songs also dot the set list, but Summer Hours is strongest at its most mellow, where Lux Land evokes her California childhood with a handful of rural, hazy, and altogether gorgeous ballads.