Busted Chandeliers, Postmarks & Timestamps

The first track of the Quad Cities quartet Busted Chandeliers' Postmarks & Timestamps album is titled "Love Is Bold," and the song is, too, in its folksy way. The vocal harmonies are tight, and every instrumental facet - the guitar, the ukulele, the hand claps, the bass, and the percussion - is integral and integrated yet doing its own thing. The song is emotionally amorphous but at the same time crystalline.

The band - Erin Moore, Amy Falvey, Maureen Carter, and Erin Marie Bertram - certainly leads with its best shot, but it's hardly the only highlight. The ensemble travels on many tributaries of Americana on the record, but it's at its strongest in waters so expertly navigated in "Love Is Bold" - a joyously dense and ambitiously rigorous folk rock that refuses to be pigeonholed from moment to moment.