"Apart from the things I touched/Nothing got broke all that much," sings Matthew Houck on "Nothing Was Stolen (Love Me Foolishly)," a harmony-laced heartbreaker on his fifth album. Houck, the Brooklyn-via-Georgia songwriter who performs as Phosphorescent, nails the ramble-tamble country-rock sound of Gram Parsons and Neil Young records, mixing rockers like the sax-fueled boogie "It's Hard to Be Humble (When You're From Alabama)" with elegantly bummed ballads like "The Mermaid Parade," a slow-mo lament about a bicoastal affair gone wrong. You might feel like you've heard some of Here's to Taking It Easy before, but Houck is skillful enough that you probably won't mind hearing it again.

“Ambling Alp”

The "Ambling Alp" was the nickname of the six-and-a-half-foot-tall Primo Carnera. Though the song is named after the Italian-born 1930s heavyweight champion, Yeasayer are actually paying tribute to boxing legend Joe Louis with this first-person psychedelic dance-rock tune. “I was always interested in writing a song that had boxing mythology in it,” Yeasayer’s Chris Keating said. “It’s pretty fascinating: There were so many amazing characters, and it was so closely entwined with 20th century history.” Yeaseyer also invokes German champ Max Schmeling and hints at the historical significance placed on the historic bouts between the Nazi-era boxer and the African-American Louis.