For those unaware, a couplet is a pair of rhyming lines with the same meter. Each line is made up of different words, but they always come together at the end. Likewise, married couple Jordan and Jodi are completely different people, but they work together for the same goal of creating unique, but relatable folk music.

Couldn’t Be Happier’s sophomore album, Couple(t)s, will make an impact far beyond the borders of their home-state of North Carolina. Although Couple(t)s finds the most shade beneath a folk-rock umbrella, the album pays homage to a wide array of traditions - a New Orleans, second-line groover drives Come Back Tomorrow; a haunting, industrial accompaniment scaffolds Lydia’s Bridge; and a handful of bluegrass licks premiere in King Of Austin.

The optimism that community, tradition, and love are equipped to handle the terrifying prospects of climate change, authoritarianism, and other perils of modernity, plus the stunningly assertive lead vocals and harmonies, provide all the gravity needed to keep these diverse sounds in symphonic orbit.

1. Come Back Tomorrow
2. When I Die
3. Plastic Bag Odyssey (I’ll Never Die)
4. Tear It Down
5. Devil’s Tramping Ground
6. Pretty Polly
7. King of Austin
8. Wherever You Go
9. Weatherman
10. I Got You
11. Brown Mountain Lights
12. Lydia’s Bridge

With inspired lyricism and a sense of musical freeness, this dutifully crafted new album opens on the rousingly rhythmic Come Back Tomorrow and then we get brought forth the reflective ditty When I Die, the cautionary storytelling of an everyday grocery store item within Plastic Bag Odyssey (I’ll Never Die), the countrified Tear It Down, and then come both the joyfully upbeat of Devil’s Tramping Ground and the low slung Pretty Polly.

Along next is a vibrant, train track-imbibed rhythm that drives King of Austin and that is in turn followed neatly by the dulcet Wherever You Go, the heartfelt and impassioned Weatherman, the playful, harmonica-hued I Got You, the set rounding out on the languishing beauty of Brown Mountain Lights, coming to an all too soon close on the atmospheric storytelling of Lydia’s Bridge.

The title Couple(t)s holds multiple meanings also. Not only does it refer to Jodi Hildebran Lee (drums, vocals, harmonica) and Jordan Crosby Lee’s (guitar, vocals) relationship as a married couple, but it is also a nod to the duo’s favorite poetic device. The couplet is simple and powerful - much like folk music, Jodi says. But it’s also an apt metaphor for our relationship.

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