Does everything have to feel so heavy all the time? Claud Mintz fights with this question all the time. Not polite little tiffs, either: Big, dragout, existential wars, the kind that might push you to eventually change the tenor of your whole life. The 10 songs on their rich and resplendent third album Me and the Music find the 27-year-old Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter-producer grappling with that question and coming up, triumphantly, with something close to an answer: Things can be heavy, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have fun. Things can be heavy, but that beer in your hand isn’t—why not hold it aloft for a moment, sing along with the friends surrounding you, forget your troubles for the length of a perfect indie-pop song? 

Me and the Music is Claud’s first album in three years, since 2023’s acclaimed Supermodels, and although it still fits easily into the established universe of Claud’s music, it also represents an emotional 180-turn from what came before. “I was just sick of taking everything so seriously—Supermodels was such a serious record, and I just sulked in feelings for so long,” says Claud. “Such terrible things have happened in this country the last few years, but I’ve only grown closer to the people around me because of that. The world has shown me that the worst can happen, but it might just bring you closer to your community. There’s a difference between being sincere with life and taking life too seriously.”