

Seattle foursome Chastity Belt has been making music together for 15 years, and their sixth album looks at how their friendship has evolved and strengthened over time—through relocations, hardships, and the changes that occur as one moves out of their twenties and into the next phase of their life. Chastity Belt’s chiming, fuzzed-out indie rock has a sincerity at its core, making its lyrics—“All we do is talk about things that aren’t here,” Gretchen Grimm muses amidst the chaotic riffing and harmonics of “Talk About”—land like a boulder. On opener “Friends for This,” Lydia Lund declares, “I’ve got friends for this/They’ll help me out of this mess,” Grimm’s pealing guitar counterpoint doubling as further proof of Lund’s assertion. The cacophony is made even more splendid by the band’s all-in vocal harmonies on tracks like the apologetic “Be Kind,” a glum yet hopeful noise-pop gem that underscores the album’s examinations of how the word “friend” is more than a simple noun.