Music Review: Lizzy McAlpine tells intimate folk-pop stories on her third album, ‘Older’

The opening track on folk-pop singer-songwriter Lizzy McAlpine’s third album, “Older,” is only one minute and 40 seconds long. In that time, “The Elevator” carries the listener into McAlpine’s internal world, climbing a steady piano melody toward a drum-led instrumental before the song meets an abrupt end — depositing the listener at the second track, but more importantly, in the thick of McAlpine’s current conundrum. “Older” follows McAlpine’s 2021 album “Five Seconds Flat” and its viral hit “Ceilings,” McAlpine’s first entry into the Billboard Hot 100. Here, “March” brings reflections on grief: “Tryna find the lesson in it all but/I haven’t learned anything.” And: “I didn’t know it’d be this hard/So far away and then it hits you.” The title track, “Older,” ends with McAlpine repeating the refrain: “I wish I knew what the end is.” Tucked within McAlpine’s worried words is exactly what listeners look to her for: A still-confident tone, a pretty melody and reflections that only assure listeners in their own troubles.