A.C. Newman's third solo album is the punkest thing he's ever done – and also the quietest, the sweetest, the subtlest, simultaneously the most emotionally fraught and spiritually contented.

It begins with a delicately blissful song about being "in a strange in-between space where the things I had always strived for – perfect happiness, success, being the best at what I do – were suddenly not nearly as important as just holding onto what I had," as he puts it, and ends with the saddest, most direct and heartbreaking song he's ever written. In between is "dad rock" in its purest, most powerful form. [...]

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