I think it’s cool when music has a very specific effect on the listener. Like the Beastie Boys command us to fight for our rights. “YMCA” causes everyone to move their arms in cheerleader-type configurations. And Tender Forever makes you wanna find a mullet-haired girl to roll around on the carpet with.

Released this week, Wider is the second album from K Records’ French phenom Melanie Valera, aka Tender Forever. (Pick up a copy of RIVET’s Green Issue for our review of her debut.) Though The Soft and the Hardcore was mostly controlled chaos, Wider is similar in that it meanders a bit like you imagine Valera’s train of thought might, if she’s excited about a person or a song or a Post-It note album cover concept. This is clearly a woman who spends a lot of time thinking when not playing a bunch of instruments and traveling between Europe and her adopted home of the Pacific Northwest. Her new songs are as warm and ultra-personal, but not quite as catchy, as those from the first album. Here the first track, “Tiny Heart and Clever Hand,” is probably the best. But you’ll keep going all the way to the end with “So We Could Deal”—cause when Tender Forever is on the stereo, you listen.