Sylvan Esso - No Rules Sandy

Sylvan Esso's fourth album, 2022's No Rules Sandy, is a charmingly relaxed yet still sonically experimental production that marks a new period of creativity for the North Carolina duo. Technically, the album follows their Grammy-nominated 2020 effort Free Love, which itself marked the end of a trilogy that started with their 2014 self-titled debut and moved through 2017's Grammy-nominated What Now. Those albums were purportedly recorded over long periods of time with much planning and writing. Conversely, No Rules Sandy was produced more loosely in a rented house in Los Angeles where partners Nick Sanborn and Amelia Meath wrote and recorded each song as it came to them in the moment. The result is an album marked by a vibrant spontaneity that retains all of the hallmarks of the sparklingly glitchy electronic pop that made their previous work so compelling. Tracks like "Look at Me," "Didn't Care," and "Sunburn" are effusive, hooky anthems that frame Meath's delicately textured vocals in