“Sometimes I want the palm trees to lean so far that they break and crush me,” Mike Krol sings on “Blue and Pink,” echoing every sad sack who’s had to drag a lovesick head through an obnoxiously perfect LA day. The 10 other songs Krol’s fourth album, Power Chords, are similarly bright and stricken, as the garage-pop auteur uses his titular tools to dig into abandonment and heartbreak. Krol’s always cut the fizzy thrills of his succinct compositions with disarming earnestness, but he seems especially intent on skipping the formalities here—he’s hurting too much to hide his wounds.

by Chris Stamm