Anthony D’Amato grew up in a rural part of New Jersey and attended Princeton University, where he wrote his senior thesis on Bruce Springsteen and struck up a friendship with Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Paul Muldoon. Muldoon offered him an independent study where D’Amato brought him songs for critique and in turn was given books on Paul Simon and Leonard Cohen to digest. It led to several self-recorded albums that earned praise from NPR, The New York Times, and Paste. 2014’s The Shipwreck from the Shore, is D’Amato’s first full-band album, recorded in a professional studio in Maine that was housed in a beautiful 18th-century farmhouse, with Matt McCaughan of Bon Iver on drums, Brad Cook of Megafaun on bass, and producer/keyboardist Sam Kassirer twiddling the dials. “Was a Time” starts with an assurance and poetic economy that comes from years of preparation, but it’s the sweet, forlorn atmospherics of “Ludlow” that emotionally grip the listener, along with the acoustic guitars and lyrical honesty of “If It Don’t Work Out.”