Longtime Merge Record indie-pop band The Rosebuds have been through some shit. A lot of good shit, like being on a great label for years and years, releasing great music (including their definitive album, 2003′s incredible Make Out), and regularly touring. Members Ivan and Kelly were also married, for almost as long as they have been a band, and this is their first post-marriage release. And just as going through something like a divorce can be challenging, continuing to be creative together, after the fact, is rare, if near-impossible. But when it happens, as it has with their new album Low Planes Fly Low, the results can be absolutely stunning.

Of course, there were many points along the way that it looked like The Rosebuds would never give us this album. They were going through some real life shit, and making records is a sure casualty of people moving past that, and in different directions. But instead, The Rosebuds used their new album to capture what it’s like, trying to stay close. All of the things that fans have grown to love about The Rosebuds, the boy-girl vocal, the guitar/piano interplay, and the clever turns of phrase, are all present on this record, but the sunshine has been replaced by melancholy and experience. Musically, there are traces of R&B and a sort of Disco-Noir, mixed with their regular, airy rock-orchestrated arrangements. The high mark on this album is the content, though. The lyrics are so familiarly wounded, honest, frustrated, and conflicted as to how to move forward, how to feel….topics that young bands throw around aimlessly, but here, these feelings are documented by adults, feeling them for real. For me, some of the most cutting lyrics arrive in “Come Visit Me”:

“I need something to happen now. Even if it fucks me up…. I need you to see me, even if it make it worse.”

Sonically, this album is unquestionably their best. The band is filled out by a North Carolinian all-star team and somehow sounds their biggest without sounding over-produced. The sonic landscape compliments our two heroes perfectly, as they feel some very real hurt and confusion, and as they figure out how to take a step forward, somehow together. The final result is a barrage of their most compelling vocal performances and lyric-writing, all immediately both hyper-personal, and able to speak to the painful romantic pasts of their listeners. We’ve all been through some shit, right?

Recommended tracks: “Woods” and the breath-taking “Come Visit Me”