In Brief

Carpenter has spent much of the three years since her last album meditating on this trio of elemental components of human experience, and she comes up with a lot to chew on in this 14-song, 73-minute disc. Generally she’s more effective when sketching vignettes from life than trying to lay out answers to its mysteries. She plays the Greek Theatre on Thursday.

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Albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor), two (fair), three (good) and four (excellent). The albums are already released unless otherwise noted.