There's a tendency to underestimate overly happy sounding music as lightweight. But what's wrong with wanting to feel good? And who decided anguish or cynicism equaled authenticity, anyway? Like OK Go before him, Sloan Struble, the dude behind Dayglow, isn't afraid to embrace optimism—which helped him find an early audience on TikTok with 2018's dreamy "Can I Call You Tonight." On his second album, the young Texan delivers 11 songs that sound as fresh and bright as citrus straight from the tree. Struble says he was watching a lot of Cheers while writing Harmony House and started out the process by composing music for "a sitcom that didn't exist." You can hear it in the crushed-out "Close to You" and easygoing "Moving Out." The ridiculously peppy "Medicine" goes all in on synth—not to mention sun-soaked guitar melodies that recall Tame Impala—to conjure the comforting bliss of '80s TV show theme songs. But listen: "I'm on the outside looking in/ I never said what I really meant/ I wasn't made to be medicine for you" is a disguised rebuff; as a clever Brit once said, a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down. "December" employs extreme sax and a hopscotch bounce to impress a message of pragmatic hope: "There's gonna be days when you don't feel like you, but that's what seasons do — they change." Struble has said the record "is about dealing with change and realizing that change is OK, that everything changes and it doesn't have to be overwhelming." There's also a cinematic quality here. "Woah Man" is ready to soundtrack the prom scene of a teen rom-com, the pinball-bounce cheer of "Something" is tailor-made for a Farrelly Brothers flick, and "Balcony"—think Vampire Weekend on candy-coated caffeine pills—recalls early '90s Japanime like Sailor Moon SuperS. To be honest, the only off note here is sad-boi ballad "Crying on the Dancefloor." But no doubt TikTok has a place for that, too. © Shelly Ridenour/Qobuz