It’s no coincidence that Jeremy Zucker’s third studio album, Garden State, shares its name with the 2004 cult film. Like Zach Braff’s character, Zucker himself is a Jersey boy who left his small town to chase his dreams, returning years later to find everything has changed. Zucker continued leaning into that symmetry in an album trailer, part of which he filmed outside his childhood house. It belongs to another family now, almost unrecognizable, save for the stone walkway leading to the front door where his brother tore his ACL 15 years earlier. Across 14 songs, Zucker reflects on that transformative period: why he left, what he missed, how a place or person can feel both familiar and foreign, and what does “home” even mean, anyway? The opener, “hometown,” revisits the guilt of leaving loved ones behind, imagining their accusations (“Oh, right/Bet it feels nice/Turning your back on your whole damn life”), and distance continues to take its toll on “i don’t know you” and “time zones.” Nostalgia meets regret on “simple things” and “what i almost had,” where he looks back on his youth with adult eyes and overdue appreciation. Mostly pared down to guitars, drums, and keys, the simplicity not only highlights Zucker’s introspection, but makes space for the listener’s, too, and the mixed emotions that follow. But there’s brightness among the melancholy. Zucker assures his younger self that everything works out on “surprise!,” an uplighting ballad fit for the closing montage of its own coming-of-age film. And from the ache of loss, songs like “navy blue,” “all i want,” and a cover of The Postal Service’s “Such Great Heights” (another cinematic nod) are glowing pictures of new, lasting love. By album’s end, Zucker’s found his answer: Home doesn’t have to stay in the past. It’s wherever—and with whomever—you make it.