In January, Dan Rose released “Let You Go,” a song about the pain of being dumped when you have absolutely no idea why. In May, he returned with “How About You,” and his single seems to turn the mirror toward the listener: “And you, by any chance, aren’t you the one who does the leaving?”

I was genuinely struck by just how much fit into these two minutes and twenty-two seconds, and how it was done.

In the track I heard, it seemed, everything at once: longing, self-irony, and an extreme honesty that for a moment makes you feel unfamiliar, if not outright uneasy.

Dan Rose’s voice sounds tired and strained, breaking through dense guitar riffs and a stumbling rhythm. The arrangement works just as flawlessly: it pulls back at times to let the vocals come to the forefront, then collapses into a wall of sound, underscoring the inner conflict of the lyrical hero. The musician plays with dynamics on some truly incredible level.