With People

After launching the solo project Diane Coffee with a pair of freewheeling psych-glam-pop albums in the mid-2010s, Foxygens Shaun Fleming took a more thoughtful, relatively restrained approach to 2019s Internet Arms. It examined topics like technology, versions of self, and digital alienation with a sleeker, 80s-inspired synthesizer pop. For their fourth album, With People, they delve still deeper into contemplative territory. Flemings most personal album to date, it looks back on formative moments and life lessons with a mellower, reflective tone that has more in common with 70s and 80s soft rock than Bowie or Foxygen, although its the first Diane Coffee album to be produced by Foxygen leader Jonathan Rado. The results are expectedly catchy and often warmly poignant while still occasionally making room for showmanship, especially on sassier entry "Our Love/The Run." Appearing midway through the track list, it reaches near operatic rock heights following a theatrical mallet-percussion-and-piano break and an unaccompanied, seething whisper, "You dont get to treat me this way." The song goes on to play with shifting time signatures and tempos, chorus-style backing vocals, and the sound of someone leaving. Before that, though, songs like the twangy "The Great Escape," "Forecast," a mix of jangle and sunshine pop featuring Deep Sea Diver, and the dreamy keyboard ballad "Corrina from Colina" establish an even-keeled tenor that invites listeners into Flemings chronicles. Even "Bullied," about a sadly unforgettable character from adolescence, inhabits a breezy, glistening pop and includes a chorus that partners the repeated line "I just cant take any more" with tuneful droplet keyboard tones. Following the orchestral-pop standout and partner tribute "Forever You & I" and acoustic ballad "What Good Is It Now," With People closes on the striding "Song for David," whose loose improvisation seems to celebrate relationships, including musical ones. ~ Marcy Donelson