Ben Gibbard and co. sound newly emboldened on their first record in four years, with musicianship that evokes the band’s golden era and a newly mature, self-aware perspective on hardships and grief.

On their first independent album in nearly 30 years, the Pacific Northwest legends ponder endurance and mortality as they abandon the polish of recent releases for a looser, no-filter approach.

The Bristol band’s latest is inventive and restrained, blending influences from trip-hop, folk, and pop for a subtle, uncanny sound that’s all their own.

Frolicking through 1980s new age, ’90s pop, and 2010s EDM with the promise of universal wellbeing, Stella Stallion’s debut LP is equally silly and sincere.