Deep Sea Diver is a pop rock band based in Seattle, Washington. The band consists of Jessica Dobson (vocals, guitar, keys), Peter Mansen (drums), Garrett Due (bass), and Elliot Jackson (guitar, synthesizer).

Dobson’s musical bona fides are undeniable. Signed to a contract with Atlantic Records at age 19 (she recorded two albums for the label that were ultimately shelved), the gifted multi-instrumentalist went on to perform as a touring and recording member of the Shins, Spoon, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, as well as Beck and Conor Oberst, lending her colorful guitar flourishes and knack for offbeat melodies to each act while simultaneously continuing to write and record as Deep Sea Diver.

Having released the well-regarded History Speaks LP in 2012 and the even-better Always Waiting EP in 2014, Dobson finally bid her time with the Shins adieu—with James Mercer’s blessing—to blaze her own musical trail, but not as a solo artist. Instead, within a band construct.

The results on Deep Sea Diver’s latest release have proven worth the wait. With Dobson’s focus now solely applied to her own music, the quartet has taken a considerable leap forward, recording Secrets with Radiohead engineer Darrell Thorp as a mostly live-in-the-studio affair, allowing the band’s interplay to fully take flight on tracks such as the squalling, propulsive “Wide Awake,” bouncing pop confection “Creatures Of Comfort” (the upbeat melody of which belies the pain implied by a repeated assertion that “it’s tearing us apart”) and the album’s finest moment, “Body On The Tracks,” a soaring guitar-and-mellotron fest that could easily pass for one of Billy Corgan’s studio-built guitar orchestras if I hadn’t witnessed Dobson playing it note-perfectly during her band’s spotless set at Seattle’s Bumbershoot Festival earlier this year.