Perfecting Loneliness

"It's beautiful and it's sad, but it's all that I have," Blake Schwarzenbach sings on "Perfecting Loneliness," the first album from Jets to Brazil in over two years. Not that beauty and sadness are anything new to Jets to Brazil. When everyone last heard from the band, they had delivered "Four Cornered Night," a melancholy mix of folk, rock, country, and just about everything in between. Inspired by "Four Cornered Night"'s ambitious nature, the band has returned with "Perfecting Loneliness": a mirrorball of sound that reflects a clearer, more focused Jets to Brazil. "Perfecting Loneliness" represents not so much a continuation of the band's previous gestures, but a better understanding of them. Now, the melodies flow out of Schwarzenbach -- the Jets' brave blend of angular rock, epic balladry and really cool keyboard noises front and center -- as his guitar (or piano) gently weeps. Beautiful and sad? Absolutely. But "Perfecting Loneliness" is all the better for it.