CARE is the musical project of Justin Majetich, whose sprawling, ambitious compositions are brought to full-blown, technicolor life with the assistance of a cast of instrumental and technical collaborators. Although Majetich is currently based in New York, he originally hails from Grand Rapids, Michigan, which means I can add him to the short list of properly good things to come out of my home state. Luv in the Ruins is both the first new release I heard this year and the first with which I unreservedly fell in love.

A concept album that charts the rise and fall of a violently passionate love affair, Luv in the Ruins could certainly be described as bloated, messy, awkward, and melodramatic. However, in this case, these descriptors aren't necessarily bad things because they mirror - with eerie verisimilitude - the emotional ups and downs that accompany a turbulent relationship between two twenty-somethings convinced they are one another's soulmates. The album's rambling, neurotic narrative perfectly encapsulates one lover's struggle to accept the fact that they are not, a slowly-unfolding revelation that occurs amidst a bevy of uniquely millennial distractions. Twitter ("I see you've been tweeting every step of your collapse but haven't texted me back") and dating apps ("How am I to know a language when the body's only forty pixels wide?") share space with psychological theory ("I can feel my shadow mount the saddle of my psyche") and modern art ("You thought they looked heavy like the fields in a Rothko"). Moreover, copious footnotes (yes, footnotes) reveal further seemingly disparate influences, from Dante and Kierkegaard to French new-wave cinema and anime.

Consider as well the unwieldy length of the album's songs (most average six minutes, while the longest tops out at nearly ten) and their ever-shifting melodies and instrumentation, and you end up with the musical equivalent of a stream-of-consciousness novel. I can see how some may find that burdensome and self-indulgent, but those who can see pieces of themselves reflected in Majetich's intelligent but overstimulated ramblings will likely find a lot to admire and dissect. From this perspective, nearly every second feels essential. Even the creepily distorted reading of Frank O'Hara's poem "For Grace, After a Party" buried beneath the ambient minimalism of "What I Am Thinking" resonates, particularly if you're familiar with the poem's dichotomization of passion into equal parts violence and serenity. Both the poem's and album's narrators' "most tender feelings writhe and bear the fruit of screaming."

Through its loose story line, the album ties the more immediate impact of a dissolving relationship to broader existential concerns. While oscillating synths and vocal distortion collide with piano and guitar in an infinitely mutable electro-organic soundscape, "You Hallucinate" touches on the complexity of gender and sexuality, not only as it relates to defining oneself but also as it is interpreted and, sometimes, weaponized by others. "Laura, don't you label me a lapse in your sexual orientation," Majetich drolly chastises his lover. "Even if I'm gendered as you claim, I'm more than your sum of construction." At times, this painstaking explication of the factors that shape his sense of identity is defensive and accusatory; on "Icon," he insists, "Self is not material for everything I create/Still, I can't seem to frame how you ruptured mine." In the same breath, however, he rolls his eyes at his own self-obsession: "It's childish, your self-crucifixion on a cross made of privilege." Ultimately, such volatility threatens not only his romantic relationship but his ability to relate to the world at large. By the dark, R&B-influenced groove "Jade," he is lashing out at everyone and everything: "Your friends are so insufferable, so insular, so pure white boredom, alchemizing hollow joy from limerance and cheap tequila."

Having sabotaged the relationships that kept him tethered to reality, Majetich finds himself isolated inside his own self-pity. "I'm bleeding out memory, and language itself is never sufficient to fill the absence we trail behind us," he admits in "Solitude," a title that seems to willfully deny the magnitude of his loneliness, isolation watered down to its more palatable form. The music breaks down in tandem with the narrative, its driving, easily digestible indie rock melodies frequently interrupted by abrasive, blaring synths. However, a beacon of hope arrives in the album's finale, "Mangled Flame," a comparatively subdued ode to acceptance and moving forward. "No love was ever lost," Majetich concedes, "just painfully rearranged," a marked change in stance from his earlier threats and accusations. If you follow along in the album's liner notes, the closing remark is this: "It doesn't bother me to know I am alone at the edge of an empire." After all of his fears and flaws have been piled so brutally upon the listener, it's a relief to find the arc of catharsis completed on a self-affirming note. Majetich as the narrator is transformed, having shed many skins, and, in a way, the listener is, too.

This Friday, Bandcamp is donating its share of all digital album sales to the American Civil Liberties Union. Consider purchasing Luv in the Ruins on that day to not only support a deserving independent musician but also a worthy political cause.