Nate Amos has made hundreds of self-recorded songs as This is Lorelei since the early 2010s, without much fanfare or effort on his part to promote them. “Lorelei was just kind of a secret for most of its existence,” he tells Apple Music. It seemed like Water From Your Eyes, his bizarro-pop duo with Rachel Brown, would keep overshadowing his solo work, despite being the newer endeavor. Then came his 2024 album Box for Buddy, Box for Star, a sleeper breakthrough that got two reissues, each one adding more covers from increasingly famous supporters: MJ Lenderman, Waxahatchee, Haley Williams’ Power Snatch, Jeff Tweedy… The Singer in My Band is the first This is Lorelei release to be greeted with anything resembling anticipation. Amos meets the moment with indelible song-craftsmanship. While the run-on verses of Box for Buddy, Box for Star overflowed with words, having to remember them all while playing live made him take a more minimalist approach this time around. “Prioritizing efficiency without sacrificing potency was kind of the name of the game,” Amos says. This is Lorelei’s foundational concept is finding possibilities in traditional music, and The Singer in My Band leans even further into country, folk, and bluegrass. Amos even enlisted his dad Bob, a professional banjo player, for the title track, “The Singer in My Band.” Modern roots music carries connotations of forced earnestness, but Amos consistently undercuts that perception with sly humor in his songs about the return of a beloved karaoke singer (“Billy Came Back”) and the impending end of days (“Watching Heaven Fall”). “It’s very easy to take music very seriously,” he says. “In reality, it’s kind of like a fundamentally funny and slightly embarrassing thing to be spending time doing. So, acknowledging that opens up a lot of doors.”