Emancipated Hearts is exactly what fans wanted from Dean Wareham. A stronger debut of solo tunes (extremely belated!) from the former Galaxie 500 and Luna leader is hard to imagine. The first track, “Love Is Colder Than Death,” is as comfy and familiar as your old Today t-shirt, with the best Galaxie 500 and Luna tropes blended into one: loping and pop-inflected, but murky, hazy, and romantic. “The Deadliest Day” features a graceful weave of strings and echoing bass drum, all subdued and somber, ringing of a Velvet Underground kind of sadness. Of course, as Wareham and wife Britta Phillips scored a number of Andy Warhol's “screen tests” for their “13 Most Beautiful” project back in 2010, it’s hard to shake that influence when listening to Wareham’s work now. He shares a certain aesthetic with the Warhol/Velvets world, his fragile voice clearly rooted in the narcoticized ambience of the desire and curiosity that so informed that part of the ‘60s. Borrowing from influences as far-ranging as filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder, George Orwell, and The Incredible String Band (see the amazing “Air”), this collection is enough to make the ache of missing Galaxie 500 less painful.