Ida, the New York band that's built its sound on the sadness of love and clean harmonies, returned to Polyvinyl for Lovers Prayers, the group's eighth full-length, which offers every promise the others provided: pretty melodies, carefully conceived songs, and plenty of gentle, sweeping instrumentals that drone lightly under Dan Littleton and Elizabeth Mitchell's careful vocals. Longtime collaborator Tara Jane O'Neil contributes her guitar and drums here, go-to cellist Jane Scarpantoni stays busy on tracks like "For Shame of Doing Wrong" (a Richard & Linda Thompson cover), and Warren Defever returns to produce the album, which was recorded at the Band's Levon Helm's studios (the drummer also plays on "First Light").

Track Listing
1 Lovers Prayers
2 The Weight of the Straw
3 The Love Below
4 Willow Tree
5 Worried Mind Blues
6 Gravity
7 For Shame of Doing Wrong
8 First Light
9 Kora
10 Surely Gone
11 The Killers 1964
12 See the Stars
13 First Take
14 Blue Clouds