Super-stripped down indie pop is at work in Dear Nora’s LP human futures. Some of these tracks are hardly more than spoken word.

Sure, songs like title track “human futures” and “we’re going down” show off some lithe fretwork, but the real takeaways are Katy Davidson’s vocals, and words, and the pop minimalist sensibility she brings to delivering the whole package.

There’s a rewarding lightness to the entire album – in the best way – that serves as a welcome counterpoint to some of the overwrought balladry competing ever more aggressively for real estate in your ear canal. Dear Nora dials it in at a lower volume and you’ll thank them for it. Think: the “Redondo Beach” change of pace on Patti Smith’s Horses. Not an unserious song, tragic even, but a welcome mood shift in genre and tone.

Stream, share, buy to your heart’s content.