BABEHOVEN EXPLORES THE WONDERS OF NATURE ON SECOND FULL-LENGTH ALBUM

On its second full-length album, Babehoven have created a musical and lyrical landscape replete with vivid imagery inspired by the natural world. Throughout “Water’s Here in You,” the words could stand alone as evocative poetry, but when sung by Maya Bon, the vista opens up to something breathtaking.

Babehoven, operating for a while now as a duo of Bon and Ryan Albert, wrote the album during a New York state winter, and a feeling of the deep freeze before the first shoots of spring saturates the 12 songs. The sound has elements of chamber folk, but this isn’t bedroom pop; the terrain is too sprawling to be held by four walls. There are forays into shoegaze as well. But this is not a simple genre exercise.

On “Birdseye,” the opener, Bon sings, “Ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon, too/ Heat and steam are the source of the stew,” a possible nod to the “parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme” of  “Scarborough Fair.” On “My Best Friend Needs,” the setting is more urgent and personal: “My best friend needs/ Something more than I can give.”

“Dizzy Spin” enjoys Babehoven’s ability to construct a wall of sound with just voice, acoustic guitar and drums, while “Millenia” is a talking song, with Bon, over a drone, noting that she finds the town of Millenia in Florida in an online search, with its “illuminating stucco, Roman-style architecture of a Cheesecake Factory.” She then strips away the layer between the writing process and the result, speaking about what feelings the word millennia brings up for her: “the referencing of the referencing of the referencing of time.”

On “Lonely Cold Seed,” Bon sings in an operatic manner, enveloped by accompanying chamber vocals. There are no choruses, and not much accompaniment besides shimmering cymbal swells. Throughout the record, her voice is hazy and smooth, comfortable in its restraint but willing to throw a sharp elbow when it’s called for.

“Lightness Is Loud” explores the indoors — a “space-themed” bathroom — and the outdoors, a recurring coral snake, that Bon asks to “curl inside me.” “Good To See You” is relatively straightforward alt-folk in the style of Mazzy Star, and the album ends with the dream “Ella’s From Somewhere Else,” a relative epic six minutes long, considering half of the tracks on “Water’s Here For You” don’t break the three-minute barrier, which is remarkable when considering how much earth they are able to traverse.

Rating: 78/81

Babehoven will perform at Baby’s All Right in Brooklyn  on Tuesday, May 7