Stevie Knipe—the main member of Adult Mom's fluid lineup—dreamed of creating a queer rom-com soundtrack. Mission accomplished, albeit without a movie. On their third album, Knipe captures what made '80s and '90s soundtracks such joys: Every song doesn't sound the same. With its gentle acoustic strumming and candle-warm pedal steel, Knipe's "Passenger" exudes the canyon vibes of Emmylou Harris and Jenny Lewis. It's an unexpected turn that flows irresistibly into the tumbling-drum power pop of "Wisconsin." From there, the record takes a time warp to the early '90s—when the Cranberries and the Sundays and 10,000 Maniacs ruled the radio—with "Breathing," Knipe's clear-as-a-bell voice practically playing tribute to Dolores O'Riordan, complete with little cracks and feather-light falsetto turns. But listen to those words, as Knipe sings about "an overdue hospital bill/ I can't afford to pay so/ I hide it under a stack of things I'd rather not/ yet deal with"; suddenly, the tinny drum sounds like an anxious pulse and burbling synths like firing synapses of worry. "My hands are stretched underneath my nose to see if I'm breathing," they sing, and the uncertainty of navigating from the cocoon of college to "real" adulthood is palpable even if you lived it decades ago. (Note to Knipe: It's not like the "What now?" feeling ever really goes away.) Equally honest and raw are the lyrics to the cheerful-sounding "Sober": "And the last image of me you remember/ Is my hunched-over back on the driver's side/ Begging you to get out when you said that you wanted to die/ Can't you see that's the kind of shit I can't be the one to decide?" As the heavy bass reverberates and synths bob, it begs the question of what an Adult Mom/Bleachers collaboration might sound like. (Note to Jack Antonoff: Call them now.) "Dancing" delights with sweet call-and-response backing vocals, "Berlin" soothingly tracks the loss of friendship, and the way Knipes takes flight on the word "shadooooows" in "Checking Up" is beyond charming. And you can count on "Adam" being an eventual live favorite, with the fun-to-sing lines "I thought about the first girl I kissed was a girl I wanted to kiss but not the first girl I wanted to kiss, you know" yelled by the audience. © Shelly Ridenour/Qobuz