After recording the first album in decidedly lo-fi fashion and mostly by himself, decided to make a change for the group's second album, 2013's . First, he teamed up with producer (of ) and headed to a real studio (then another after the first one flooded during Hurricane Sandy). He also replaced the drum machine he'd been using with a real drummer, , and recorded the bass and drums live together. For many bands that start out as intimate bedroom recording projects, this kind of shift signals the beginning of the end as the very things that made them interesting (intimacy, weirdness, and immediacy) are discarded in favor of fidelity and some degree of professionalism. In ' case, moving to a studio with better sound has served to strengthen the impact of the music. and don't change the basic reverb-heavy sound or the surf-riding guitars or the general feel of the music; instead they make it a little clearer and more punchy, which helps the songs hit harder. The live bass and drums, too, give the songs a raw energy that their previous recordings didn't have. turns out to be an ideal addition to the sound, never just playing the beat robotically but coloring it in with crisp fills and strong cymbal work. sings a little louder and with more force too, delivering some aggression on the uptempo tracks and giving the slower, more introspective ones some extra depth. There's a nice bit of variety, as well, with quite a few songs that stretch ' range. While most of them fall right into the sweet spot of hard-charging, underwater indie pop -- with a couple ("Careless," "Shallow") sounding like modern reverb-pop classics -- there are diversions into acoustic balladry (on the absolutely beautiful "Sleep Apnea,") jittery post-punk ("Caustic Cross"), and best of all, a wonderfully atmospheric shoegaze dreamer that features sharing wistful vocals with 's . All in all, is exactly the record should have made at this point, reinforcing all the things that made them good while adding some excellent new wrinkles and boosting the production values. ~ Tim Sendra