PEASANT

From the sound of things, Damien DeRose is having a few problems with the ladies. They leave him standing on street corners and “laying on the carpet” (as he notes in “The Flask”), and he’s not quite sure how to put things right. The young Doylestown, Penn., native spends his third album under the Peasant banner sorting out his girl troubles, setting heartbreak and confusion to hushed indie-folk. He sings with a warble and twang reminiscent of Elliott Smith and Ryan Adams, but he’s less dramatic than either. Even the impeccably constructed piano-pop closer “Don’t Let Me Down” feels off-the-cuff, like he’s serenading himself on a Sunday morning. “What are we ever to do?” he asks the opposite gender on “Girls.” If he ever successfully answers that one, he’ll have solved a riddle for the ages.