When Nick Leng describes his music, he often refers to color. The indie artist’s gift is a kaleidoscope of emotions manifested into enthralling sounds. “I like dissonance, tension,” he says, “but also, joy and beauty are so important to me.” The most stunning songwriting is at once beguiling and relatable. And Leng’s second album Spirals is just that: the untethered sound of Nick Leng falling in love with music again. 
 Spirals, the album, is anchored by a pair of songs examining the everyday human condition. It was written just before, but mostly during, the pandemic—much if it while living in a trailer in LA’s Topanga Canyon, enveloped in nature. The levitating “My Mind Is a Mess in the Morning” is a vulnerable meditation on new beginnings stymied by old baggage. In contrast, the off-kilter banger “Morning/Midnight” is a search for the radiance peeking behind that darkness. 
 As a commentator, Leng is fearless in chasing emotions, candid about wherever they lead him.His last album, LEMONS, was themed around loss—a failed romance, constant itinerancy, the disconsolate reality of friend’s death. And as we learn in Spirals, those demons didn’t simply vanish—the universe is far too complicated, after all—but they did finally dissipate. “There’s a lot of romance in the record,” he says, “I had these moments of peak love and joy and life. But also, like, that trailer park in Topanga eventually became rat infested…