Aly & AJ - a touch of the beat gets you up on your feet gets you out and then into the sun (deluxe) (2022) [Hi-Res]

Long gone are the days of “Potential Breakup Song.” On their first full-length LP in 14 years, sisters Aly & AJ Michalka, beloved in the mid-2000s for their Disney-brand teenage pop-rock, have grown up. First came the EPs: 2017’s Ten Years and 2019’s Sanctuary, a new era for the duo defined by a masterful understanding of ’80s-indebted synth-pop. Now they’ve looked back even further, pulling from ’60s and ’70s rock to craft their own kind of modern classics. “We set out to make a West Coast album—this California energy,” Aly tells Apple Music. “Hopefully it gets people feeling good about the state of the world again.” “This is a self-help record,” adds AJ. “We love it.”

There are pleasures to be found, from the Americana road-trip opener “Pretty Places” and the big pop drum fills of “Paradise” to the romanticism of “Slow Dancing” and the album’s surprising collaborations, including Heart’s Nancy Wilson and Wild Nothing’s Jack Tatum on the sunny-sounding “Listen!!!” and Melissa Etheridge on closer “Hold Out.” Below, Aly & AJ break down their album, track by track.