San Isabel

The third album from the Texas Americana duo of Jonathan Clay and Zach Chance is easy enough to listen to—bright harmonies, acoustic guitars, hooky choruses, rich storytelling—but there's an underpinning of anxiety and disquiet. From the self-explanatory opening “Crazy World (Judgement Day),” which openly wonders if a societal reckoning is due, to the chilly cover of The Mamas & The Papas' “California Dreamin'” and its spiritual companion, album closer “Winter's Lament,” there is a sense of longing that belies the genial musical mood. The latter borrows the line, “I feel summer creepin' in,” from Tom Petty's “Mary Jane's Last Dance,” capturing the collision of the hopeful and the ominous that permeates the album.