For Marnie Stern, a riff is worth a thousand words. The tracks on her sophomore album are bonanzas of electric-guitar pyrotechnics: Lightning-speed arpeggios give way to a triumphant cry (“She got what she was after!”) on “Steely”; mesmerising tonal patterns play giddily with monster riffs on closing opus “The Devil’s In the Details”. Stern’s vocals—exuberant, poppy yelps—feel less like a sonic centrepiece than a carefully calibrated instrumental layer, one that adds depth and wit to her formidable, prog-tinged rock.