The bar set for Les Louanges’ third record is awfully high, given that his first two records both won the Juno Award for Francophone Album of the Year. But with Alouette!, the Montreal-based maverick (born Vincent Roberge) has produced his most ambitious and expansive release to date. Channelling idiosyncratic auteurs from Leonard Cohen to Prince to Beck to Mk.gee, Alouette! sees Roberge trying to reconcile the passion in his heart with the worries on his mind, whether he’s drawing a direct line between the horrors in Gaza and Quebecois weapons manufacturers on the baroque manifesto “Je confirme ma présence,” easing his existential anxieties with the tropical Talking Heads groove of “Correct,” or using the louche lo-fi funk of “La journée va être chaude” to connect the dots between climate change and capitalism. The album hits its emotional breaking point with “GODDAMN!,” an equally defeatist and defiant indie-soul anthem about keeping your spirits up in a world that’s constantly letting you down.