It’s been nearly two years since Ellen Kempner’s DIY indie band Palehound released their excellent Black Friday album. Since then, they’ve released a bunch of one-off singles — “Your Boyfriend’s Gun,” “See A Light,” a cover of Elliott Smith’s “Southern Belle” — and contributed tracks to a couple of compilations. Those singles aren’t throwaways; they’re some of the best things the band has done. Today, we get another one.

The new Palehound joint “How Long” is a brief and vaguely country-ish acoustic ramble. It bright and jaunty, but its lyrics ask some dark questions. For instance: “How long till we look back and say, ‘I can’t believe we lived that way?'” Or: “How long till there rings a bell that signals us, ‘Return from hell?'” Good questions! I wish I knew the answers!

I don’t know whether Kempner is specifically singing about this pandemic era, but if she is, then those questions resonate. It would be cool to get a full Palehound album, and it would be cool if she could tour. For now, though, that slow drip of new songs is working for me. Check out “How Long” below.

“How Long” is out now on Polyvinyl.