Last spring’s surprisingly lo-fi second album, Hope, found Las Vegas singer-songwriter Shamir Bailey pursuing a more serious sound. Where his 2015 debut Ratchet was all sugary electro bangers, his latest is minimalist, dissonant and raw. Stripped-down piano pop and romantic, Sixpence None the Richer-style guitars (sometimes quasi-country, at points almost grunge) underpin Shamir’s disarming, glimmering falsetto and his endearingly theatrical conceits (“I’m too strong to just lay down and die,” he sings on Blooming). A bold, fleeting pop-rock record whose standout element remains Bailey’s gorgeous voice.
