Where’s the love now, Nate, for those squiggling synth flourishes, a healthy vocal tip into AutoTune, and chunky, punky indie rock riffs? It would appear that Amos has left his past self in the bedroom while polishing the wood paneling on his guitar en route to the studio to record This Is Lorelei’s transition from a mere DIY side-project to a proper indie prestige-baiting main focus on his sophomore effort — and first for indie giant Matador Records — The Singer In My Band.

This admittedly has been a tough year in adjustment for those of us who’ve counted ourselves early fans of all things Water From Your Eyes-related. Between Amos’ experimental art-pop band with Rachel Brown (who in their own time lately has made the leap from artist to content creator) opening for Hayley Williams this past spring, and now him getting a chaotically good-sized publicity close-up while palling around with the likes of Jack Antonoff on big tours, these two aren’t Brooklyn scene’s best kept secret any longer. We’ve heard the rest of the cool crowd like Katie Crutchfield and MJ Lenderman covering and cosigning his songs, too, and now he’s getting arguably more shine on his own than anything else he’s ever done. If I as a listener am feeling the discomfort of the level up, you can only imagine how he’s processing the creative sea change.

If he’s sweating it, you can’t really tell because this is indie rock at its most easy-to-digest comfort food regardless of your dietary preferences. Those humble bedroom-pop aesthetics that made This Is Lorelei’s first “proper” album and buzzworthy breakthrough in 2024’s Box for Buddy, Box for Star and last year’s re-recording collection Holo Boy multi-dimensional diamonds in the rough are dearly missed on this go, yet Amos turning his attention fully toward a lived-in, rustic alt-country tunefulness with its cracks smoothed over in the studio is probably the best lane to move into right now when making a long-term living out of this dying field is the game you’ve got to play.

He does it with ease standing up there on his own, even when the songs themselves rub elbows of familiarity between a hodgepodge of songwriting works in peak indie guitar-pop form by Stephin Merritt and his Magnetic Fields alongside Fountains of Wayne, the crunchier folkisms of Dinosaur Jr., his buddy MJ’s country-smoked rock ramblings, and maybe a teeny tiny prick of Pinback methodology that when cobbled together, distinctly make a timeless This Is Lorelei standout. The Singer in My Band adds almost a dozen more tracks to Amos’ already-solid prolific catalog. Any misgivings about where he is now versus yesterday with it all can take comfort knowing that the love was meant to find him here.

Highlights: “Oh No Now My”, “Billy Came Back”, “Sailing (Your Baby’s Down)”

This Is Lorelei’s The Singer in My Band is available now on Matador Records.