With their latest Hand Habits record, Meg Duffy has pulled off a wild, nothing-is-what-it-seems trick. Sonically, these are some of the most reassuring and calming songs imaginable. Take "No Difference," which, with its liquid bass line and soothing, 5th Dimension-style ascending "ba-ba-ba" harmonies, could be an easy-listening candidate for a meditation app. Duffy's voice is like pure warmth slowly poured from a jug. But then the unsettling lyrics come into focus: "I could never hear her, no matter how loud/ Screaming, 'I’ll always be the anchor you drag around.'" Or there's "Aquamarine" and its uplifting super-bounce bass and hopscotch drums soundtracking a nightmare tale of family dysfunction (an alcoholic and distant father, a ruined mother, a suicide): "When everything is burning/ You light a fire on the grave." Suddenly, the title Fun House starts to have shadows that connect it to Alison Bechdel's "family tragicomic" graphic novel of the same name. Duffy has said that the isolation of pandemic lockdown forced introspection. Besides their own projects, Duffy has spent the past few years playing guitar in Kevin Morby's band as well as on records by the War on Drugs, William Tyler and Weyes Blood. "Then, when the world basically stopped, it turned out to be the longest I’ve been alone in my entire life—without being in a relationship, without being on the road, without working myself to exhaustion," they said. "Everything psychologically that I’d been pushing down and ignoring for the past few years suddenly flew to the foreground." That led to songs like "Gold/Rust," which, with its sweet harmonies, feels a bit like Azure Ray playing with pulsing sonars, and the mysterious line "Everything's covered in gold/ all the power that you hold ... and 20 years later you found out she was the one who knew." The quirky, breezy and just slightly retro duet with Perfume Genius, "Just to Hear You," shifts near its end to unexpected, paranoia-inducing ambient noises that may make you look around the room: Are those keys in the door? Who whispered that? Did the cat knock a book off the shelf? With low-to-soar vocals and a lulling melody punctuated by strings and a gentle high hat, "The Answer" recalls an Elliott Smith track. "Control" makes good use of flute, the trendiest instrument du jour. And "Concrete & Feathers" is a cool surprise: a straight-forward Neil Young or Stevie Nicks-style rocker. More vibrant than the last couple of Hand Habits records, Fun House is a lush, disturbing delight. © Shelly Ridenour/Qobuz