Apple Music categorizes Ezza Rose’s first album, 2014’s Poolside, as “easy listening.” It’s a little too haunting to be labeled with that epithet, but Poolside does have a sense of delicacy, with Rose’s bold, clear voice contrasting with too-gentle guitar. Things picked up a bit the following year with When the Water’s Hot (“Rock,” declares Apple Music), then picked up even more with No Means No, with the band fully embracing a heavier, denser wash of sound—building a sturdy soundscape that's strong and inventive on its own, and even more so when buttressed by Rose’s vocals. “We’ve gone electric and kind of veered away from the folky stuff,” Rose told the Mercury in 2018, and the decision to amp things up continues to pay off: While No Means No has some slower tracks (“Baby, Come Down” is this close to a song that’d be played for a slow dance at the prom in the 1950s), the best stuff (“No Means No,” “Hands of Gold”) prioritizes dancing over introspection—or at least acknowledges that the two aren’t always mutually exclusive. by Erik Henriksen