The Berries (Matthew Berry) has shared dual single “White Peach” / “Wind Chime” just ahead of releasing his S/T album, which will be out this Friday. The album is a pure return to form that is Berry’s strongest take yet on the hallowed tradition of the guitar-wielding and singer-songwriter.

Lyrically, Berry has perfected the art of crafting seemingly personal and yet decidedly ambiguous prose. “White Peach” plays up the underlying instrumental’s nervous energy with images of bathroom-psychosis, which are delivered in an omnisciently demonic drawl, while “Wind Chime” repackages his signature approach to folk-inflected guitar work into charmingly upbeat bursts of pop exuberance.

The Berries masterfully engages the iconic sentiments of naked Americana by having chemical winds whistling over barley shafts, longing-swollen livers and pleading romance, yet suffuses them with a strikingly rich melancholy that is Berry’s alone. Berry attempts to reclaim some sense of a life worth living in this aftermath, clawing towards a personal faith that can only be found on the other side of an extended battle with the nihilism and self-destruction of our era.

Structurally, The Berries follows in the footsteps of a long lineage of studio-centered pop songcraft, from the comedown genius of Tusk-era Fleetwood Mac to the reverb forests of The War on Drugs. The tracks progress like a series of vignettes, displaying a rare sense of artistic confidence in their willingness to depart from established song-structure conventions. Berry writes impressionistically, always working in service of the spiritual heart of each song, foregrounding each track’s individual character over its ability to fit the mold of accepted genre convention.