Winds of Change

PCBender opens ‘Winds of Change’ with ‘Two Tree Road,’ a brisk, bright-key declaration that tells you exactly what kind of album you’re in for: warm, plainspoken, and built on the conviction that a well-placed chord and an honest lyric are enough. The record earns that conviction across seven tracks, with the title closer doing the most to cement the album’s character, patient and unadorned until the full band arrives and makes it feel like something was at stake all along. The one moment where the album loses a step is ‘This Love Grows,’ which reaches for anthem and lands at reliable instead; it’s not a stumble, just a slightly softer handshake in a record full of firm ones. For an album this uniformly tender in mood, PCBender avoids monotony through sequencing instinct, pulling the tempo down through the middle stretch before finding forward motion again, and six strong tracks out of seven is a ratio most songwriters would take.