Calm Down [LP]

Ari Roar's Calm draws on 1960's pop and modern DIY heroes for a set of lovingly languid, lo-fi miniatures. Depths of detail and lived experience bustle beneath effortlessly melodic surfaces; sure signs of a writer in confident command of his pitch. For Ari, Calm Down is a milestone in a journey that began in Dallas, Texas, where he started songwriting as a child on his family's ''super-old, out-of-tune piano''. With a tight run-time of 28 minutes and few of its 15 songs breaching the two-minute mark, Calm Down is not an album that overstates its case. ''Called In'' merges the influences of garage-pop and Grandaddy, while the brightly summery ''Windowsill'' and literal shaggy-dog tale ''Lost and Found'' show an easy lightness of narrative touch and mood control.