I would be lying if I didn’t feel excitement and a tinge of fear when I heard that Emily Scott Robinson had a new album coming out this fall. You see, I get nervous when an artist releases a new album following an album that I love. Part of me worries that the new album won’t resonate with me as much, or maybe their growth as an artist has somehow outgrown me, but I need not have worried with Emily Scott Robinson and her new album, American Siren, a spectacular and soulful follow-up to Traveling Mercies, her 2019 album, which was my first introduction to her. There’s a lot that’s happened in the last two years. The world looks a bit different, of course, but Robinson was signed to Oh Boy Records earlier this year, and it seemed like a match made in heaven and placed Robinson among contemporaries every bit as talented as she is. Although Robinson’s songwriting and lyrics are as good as ever, they’ve also matured on American Siren, a sentiment that Robinson herself shares.