Hope Sandoval and the Warm Inventions

In a recent interview, Hope Sandoval let it drop that her long-dormant ’90s band Mazzy Star hasn’t actually broken up, and is slowly working on new material. It was a bit like learning Jeff Mangum is putting the finishing touches on a new Neutral Milk Hotel album. Given Sandoval’s notorious inertia, fans shouldn’t expect anything new from Mazzy Star soon; it took the singer eight years just to release a follow-up to her first solo album. Her new record with My Bloody Valentine vet Colm O’Ciosoig, Through the Devil Softly, picks up nicely where Mazzy Star left off, with a set of druggy, dreamlike tunes that hide and conserve their melodies like they’re precious commodities not to be doled out frivolously.