Brace the Wave strips things down to just Lou Barlow, the singer-songwriter behind Sebadoh and Folk Implosion and a founding member of Dinosaur Jr., playing every instrument himself with Justin Pizzoferrato producing and engineering nine songs in half an hour. It came out on Joyful Noise in the US and Domino overseas. The A.V. Club called it Barlow at his most contemplative and confessional, praising its stripped-down, lo-fi songwriting as some of his most direct work in years.