Lean Year’s songs move at a glacial pace, their melodies diffuse and hollow, their arrangements sparse. The Virginia-based duo of Emilie Rex and Rick Alverson sometimes sounds like an ambient, slowcore version of the xx, while at other times their piano plucks and saxophone whiffs recall the quietude of a documentary score. Their defining mood is melancholy, their color palette monochrome. On their eponymous 2017 debut, Rex sang of loneliness and isolation over minimalist folk-rock, her voice barely elevated above the guitars and jazz percussion and slow-burning Wurlitzer. The pair made their latest album, amid personal tragedy: Alverson’s parents passed away, Rex’s mother was diagnosed with cancer, and the couple’s dog died. Add the pandemic to the mix and you get a bleak, meditative collection of songs that grapple with the impermanence of life and the disorientation of grief.