Like her name suggests, La Force (aka Montrealer Ariel Engle) is a musician to be reckoned with. She’s a singer-songwriter whose voice is technically proficient but can touch you profoundly. Her talents haven’t gone unnoticed: Engle has collaborated with Broken Social Scene, Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s Efrim Menuck, Quebec indie chanteuse Safia Nolin, Montreal troubadour Patrick Watson, and Aaron Dessner and Justin Vernon’s Big Red Machine. Her 2018 self-titled solo debut matched her stunningly nimble vocals with a funky array of beats and grooves. Engle brings things to a simmer on XO SKELETON, her solemnly beautiful second album about death and love, letting emotions lead where they may. Opener “condition of us” is a stirring hymn to trust, Engle’s urgent coo swaying through an atmospheric confluence of bass, guitars, synths, and heartbeat drums. Bittersweet lament “empty sympathy” finds her ruminating on heartache over swaying jazz and soul. But the album’s gem is closing track “outrun the sun,” a dubby electro jam on which Engle enters an altered state and takes us along for the ride, her voice soaring high and wide, then low and slow, leaving the listener wondering what just happened.