American Football

American Football’s debut pairs Mike Kinsella and Steve Holmes’s clean, interlocking guitars with Steve Lamos’s drums and trumpet. “Never Meant” makes those repeating figures feel both precise and slightly unsettled, leaving room for a restrained vocal.

Instrumental passages carry much of the emotion. The trumpet on “The Summer Ends” and the patient closing stretch of “Stay Home” show how the trio could develop a mood without crowding it.