Delta Spirit's Matt Vasquez was the wild card on last year's Middle Brother LP, the singer/songwriter project with Dawes traditionalist Taylor Goldsmith and Deer Tick wildman John McCauley. The transitional third record by Vasquez's main band pushes their roots-minded songs into bed with electronic toys, where they assume nifty positions: the invisible chorus of "California," the magnified vocal tics on "Tellin' The Mind," which connect Little Richard and Rahzel. The synthetic colors can seem superfluous, nodding to an indie-rock era where textural novelty often trumps songcraft. But on a track like "Yamaha," a falsetto-and-drone-draped confessional to Vasquez's wife, his band proves it can nail both.

Listen to "California":
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• Photos: Random Notes

“He Will Break Your Heart”

A lightly swinging Latin-influenced, almost cha-cha groove and close harmonies decorated Jerry Butler's early soul hit "He Will Break Your Heart," delivering a stately warning that his rival would never love his girl like he did. The melody came to Butler as he was driving on the highway from Atlantic City, New Jersey, to Philadelphia with Curtis Mayfield, and as Butler told Rolling Stone, "I just sang the melody and Curtis put the chords to it." The song's premise, Butler added, "was something that I'd lived ...The lyric was an experience rather than a revelation. Whereas music is usually a revelation."