There’s a friendly ghost haunting this album. During the past few years, founding Machinist Kathryn Calder played on Jon-Rae Fletcher’s solo debut and became increasingly integral to The New Pornographers. Never the commanding presence in her first indie-pop group, she’s barely perceptible here. Calder takes lead vocals on one song (“You Destroyer”, which describes a literally cataclysmic breakup in tones of disarming understatement) and handles keyboards, but otherwise she’s just one backup singer among several; there are holes here that her formal cadences and demure charm once filled. The imbalance makes guitarist Brooke Gallupe king of Jackson Hill: craft-wise, he’s able yet unimaginative, dwelling on obvious ironies (“Only Love You For Your Car”) or banal social observations. One line calls out “downtown loft vampires,” like Peter Cushing primly battling the forces of gentrification from his neighbourhood bodega. Personally, I find that familiar phantoms are the most affecting.