Recording under the name Midwife, the Denver DIY musician Madeline Johnston makes a sort of hazy, contemplative, slower-than-slowcore form of ambient indie rock that she calls “heaven metal.” Last year, Johnston knocked us on our collective ass with her album Forever. Today, she’s followed it up with a lush, contemplative, beautiful new record called Luminol.

Johnston recorded Luminol with a group of musicians that includes Zachary Cole Smith, Ben Newman, and Colin Caulfield, the three members of DIIV, as well as people like Have A Nice Life’s Dan Barrett, Vyva Melinkolya’s Angel Diaz, and Tucker Theodore. With these extra musicians, there’s a bit more groove and heft to the sound of Luminol than I’ve heard on past Midwife records. But Midwife’s music still feels totally intimate and personal, like a set of internal landscapes.

Luminol is a relatively small and focused album, with only five new songs, plus one random-ass cover. As Brooklyn Vegan points out, Johnston takes on the Offspring’s 1997 hit “Gone Away,” and she’s given it the new title “2020.” It’s really more of a meditation on the song than a straight-up cover, but it’s a whole lot more resonant than you might expect an Offspring cover/meditation to be. It makes me want to hear how Midwife’s version of “Pretty Fly For A White Guy” might sound. We’ve already posted the early track “Christina’s World,” and now you can hear the full album below.

Luminol is out now on the Flenser.