Pinegrove lead singer and songwriter Evan Stephens Hall couples stylistic trappings from emo and Americana with radio-ready pop hooks as vehicles for detailed, heartrending storytelling. Since coming together in the early 2010s, the New Jersey-based collective have transformed from a scrappy lo-fi project into a sprawling, anthemic rock band, with setlists chock-full of shout-along refrains built for festival stages. Following the 2016 release of the widely lauded breakthrough LP Cardinal, the group’s fame led to a movement toward pop-forward, cinema-scale compositions mixing personal and political themes—see “Alaska” and “Habitat” from 2022’s 11:11.