Aly Spaltro, previously known as Lady Lamb the Beekeeper and now as simply Lady Lamb, is a difficult woman to pin down. She refuses to be pigeonholed into a specific genre, injecting punk-rock energy into songs firmly rooted in folk but laden with enough brilliant hooks to make any pop songwriter jealous. I went into After without any knowledge of Spaltro's previous work and still have yet to acquaint myself with it, so it's hard to say how this album compares. But, on its own merits, it's consistently engaging, endearingly passionate, and wholly inventive without sacrificing accessibility.

Much of the album's power lies in its dynamic variability, on display not only from song to song but within each song individually. Opener "Vena Cava" is a prime example of this musical spontaneity, transitioning unexpectedly between verses carried only by a clean electric guitar riff and Spaltro's warm but rough-edged vocals and a chorus that explodes in a burst of distorted aggression. "Heretic" and "Spat Out Spit" similarly trade on the jarring but somehow natural juxtaposition of jagged swaths of rollicking noise and interludes of understated, reflective folk. Spaltro's voice, whose closest comparison point is an earthier Leslie Feist, remains front and center through it all, a commanding mouthpiece for her introspective lyrics. She just as compellingly delivers a quiet, observant line like, "I'm sitting on the train and I am peeling an orange," as an emotionally potent one like, "Was I born wild? Have I been asleep this whole damn time, dreaming up a lie?"

But most impressive of all are the songs that transcend this formula. "Violet Clementine" is delightfully whimsical and technicolor, borrowing from psychedelic influences. It opens with a powerfully-belted a cappella melody and gradually builds layers of instrumentation and vocals, each more infectious than the last, over top of one another. Although it operates largely on repetition, the song somehow maintains excitement and surprise anyway, feeling like at any moment it could go off the rails and turn in an entirely opposite direction. "Ten," on the other hand, is less chaotic, a heartfelt, sprawling ballad about childhood, memory and growing up that sounds as nostalgic as the experiences its lyrics recount.

Spaltro's biggest talent is her ability to make each of the album's twelve songs sound singular and newly thrilling, despite many of them relying on an arguably formulaic approach. While After could probably benefit from some trimming (it's nearly an hour long, a length which doesn't feel entirely warranted), it's hard not to be won over by its energy and enthusiasm, qualities that never wane or go stale, even upon repeated listens.