Junip

The singer/songwriter Jose Gonzalez is the best-known member of the band Junip, a low-key outfit from Gothenburg, Sweden, that has been around since the mid-’00s. On their second full-length the trio’s music simmers with subtle tension and melancholy. After a single acoustic guitar chord rings out, “Line of Fire” begins its stately chug as percussionist Elias Araya lays down a strong groove, Tobias Winterkorn fills the air with churchy organ, and Gonzalez contributes nice acoustic guitar fingerings. Gonzalez’s vocals are a model of restraint even when he turns the emotional intensity up a notch. “Your Life Your Call,” colored by slightly squelchy synth and anchored by a simple beat, advises moving on from romantic setback. The breezy, Latin-flavored “Baton” sports whistling and sweet guitar, while “Beginings” crawls along at a funereal pace as electric piano twinkles and organ tones surge. The quiet drama of “After All is Said and Done” closes the album. Propelled by an effective bass line, the song finds Gonzalez giving just-so shape and weight to every word.