The sixth album from Greta Kline and co. continues her penchant for fragmentary, collage-like songs that cohere to give an unflinching view of a NYC hipster with a predilection for over-thinking. It might not be her best album front to back, but it does contain some of her best writing and most polished sound, which is all the more impressive considering this is their first album without any external producers.

‘Pressed Flowers’ opens in media res, a seamless continuation from 2022’s Inner World Peace, but the jangly melody and pitch-perfect synths make it clear that there’s been extra care and skill taken on the arrangement, pre-empting the potential that Different Talking fulfils. For the album, the band decamped to upstate New York to record in peace, and the positive results of close quarters are clearly demonstrated on ‘Bitch Heart’. Here, the band are seriously locked-in: a jaunty bassline buoys Kline’s anxious lyrics and three tempo changes in less than three minutes are executed with shocking nonchalance.

The band’s erstwhile DIY style put the focus squarely on Kline’s lyrics, but while there are still plenty of millennial aphorisms (not sure if “by accident I ate your airpods” or “a tote bag filled with other tote bags” is the winner of peak Frankie Cosmos), the increased focus on other musical elements is a welcome development. The off-kilter keys of ‘Wonderland’, the winding background guitar solo on ‘Porcelain’ and the sax-mimicking synths of ‘Vanity’ all add distinct and interesting facets to the album.

While the songs remain short (all between 90 seconds and three minutes), there are still 17 of them and a mid-section lull does take effect after the quietly devastating ‘Your Take On’. But ‘Wonderland’ gets things back on track with some cracking percussion/keys and ‘Life Back’ feels like classic Cosmos in the way the lyrics unspool like a diary entry dripping off the page. The final image of a sunset is presented with a twee-ness that might read as a little saccharine (“how’d they get the pink light / to come out like that?”), but if you’re not game for a bit of mumblecore whimsy, then you’re probably in the wrong place to start with.