Spiking piano-driven songs of heartbreak with comic turns of phrase, cartoon voices and beatboxing outbursts, Regina Spektor has become her generation's Joni Mitchell – a singer-songwriter who nail-guns emotional truths between wisecracks. Her latest, even tighter and more flamboyant than 2009's Far, may be her best. Exhibit A: "Firewood," which treats mortal illness (a recurring theme for her) with elegant surrealism, imagining a piano used for kindling while boldly telling a comrade to "Rise from your cold hospital bed/I tell you, you're not dying." Elsewhere, "Ballad of a Politician" is sharp satire, instructing a handshaking officeholder to "Shake it, shake it, baby!" Even apparent novelty songs carry a payload. "Oh Marcello" is a Mafioso narrative with outrageous accents and real pathos; "Open" employs a hysterical gasp for air as a percussive vocal device, to unnervingly powerful effect. "All the Rowboats," which denounces museums as "public mausoleums," is telling, coming from a classical-music defector. But more so is "Small Town Moon," with its mouthful of "baby baby"s and "Whoo!"s, working a delicious metaphor for pursuing your own muse, damn the torpedoes. Here's hoping Spektor never stops.

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• Photos: Random Notes

“Youth Knows No Pain”

“Like on 'Youth Knows No Pain' — we are the ones that should demonstrate, because we can take it,” Likke Li said. “We can pierce ourselves, take Ecstasy, dance all night and still go to work at our McDonald's jobs.” Despite the hedonistic sentiment in the song, the Swedish singer also admitted in hindsight her youth had repercussions. “I remember when I was 18-19 and feeling that I know it all,” Li said. “I always feel that I know it all. But that song is about realizing you don’t, and reflecting, ‘Boy, if I only knew what would follow.’”