With her mercurial fourth solo album, Labyrinth, Heather Woods Broderick continues to tip the balance of her graceful, experimental indie folk palette a bit further toward the electronics and sleeker textures introduced on second album Glider (2015) while simultaneously revealing hints of vintage AM pop songwriting. Before she gets to that, however, the set starts off with a sparse, meditative piano song. "As I Left" begins with a repeated note that dinks out a triplet rhythm soon joined by a simple chord progression and lyrics that reveal plans to return home after some time "away from the rat race and city ways." A harmony vocal track enters, adding emphasis as she then wonders, "What was I looking for out here in the mud?" Self-examination, musically illustrated lyrics, and ethereal, melancholic harmonies are all in play from there on out, even as Broderick adds jazzy drums, spacy organ, throbbing distortion, and other electronic noise to the updated Baroque sounds of "I Want to Go." Later, the surprisingly lush, driving "Wherever I Go" and "Crashing Against the Sun," with its liquidy '80s keyboard tones and active bass, feature Broderick at her most musically assertive yet, even playing to the balcony seats. Elsewhere on the poppier side of Labyrinth is the twangy, sweetly melodic "Seemed a River," which almost leans into soaring, radio-friendly pop but for the passages of discordant percussion and piano. In between these examples, however, are more typically inward-facing and subtly experimental offerings like the not-quite-acoustic "Tiny Receptors" and noisy, ominous closer "What Does Love Care," which effectively pulls the rug out from under anyone thinking, despite some tuneful diversions, that Broderick is ready to relax into adult contemporary fare. ~ Marcy Donelson