Kevin Morby City Music (Digital Download)

Intended as a sort of companion piece to 2016's Singing Saw, City Music sees singer/songwriter Kevin Morby playing yin to the former's yang, trading comely pastoral tones for cool urban clamor. Much like Bob Dylan (an acknowledged and apparent influence), Morby is a native of the Midwest who began his career in New York, first as a member of bands like the Babies and Woods, then recast as an indie poet bard with a warm affinity for the city. Before decamping to Los Angeles, he released 2013's Harlem River, a folky Greenwich Village-indebted postcard to the city of his musical awakening. After a pair of records exploring his gentler West Coast side, Morby returns here to his New York muse, this time evoking some of the raw thrills of the CBGB crowd paired with a contemporary indie spirit all his own. Notably darker from the outset, he opens with the brooding rain-slick ballad "Come to Me Now," whose lush organ, distorted drums, and eerie whistle sample are as lonesome as the song's lyri