Singer-songwriters today are dime-a-dozen--or piso-isang-tumbok—if you prefer a folksier term. But yeah, the term gets used a lot in music circles. But now and then, a singer-songwriter in the truest sense of the word comes along who’s so compelling that we can’t help but dive into their music. And such is the case with Sasha Alex Sloan.

Boston-born and raised at Berklee College of Music, Sasha Alex Sloan is a songwriting wonder who, at the age of 19, was already signed to a major label publishing deal and had moved to Los Angeles. During her time with RCA, she released two EPs and two albums and has worked with Camila Cabello, Charlie Puth, and Idina Menzel, to name a few. Did you notice that it was a publishing deal that she was signed to? For those who know a bit about the music business, this means that those who signed her up wanted to tie considerable songwriting skills down and write her songs for herself and other artists. Now 29 years old, Sasha Alex Sloan was a success either way. So far, she has the numbers to boast: over five billion global streams, 9 million monthly listeners at the popular platforms, and all the right exposure and the trajectory to stardom.

So what does she do next? She drops the major label backing and instead releases an independent album for her next release. Enter the 13-song record “Me Again,” which is now our entry point into the world of Sasha Alex Sloan.

As for her reason for going indie, Sloan was quoted: “suddenly the thing that made me happy, that made me who I was, gave me crippling anxiety.” As we’re not privy to her real story, we can only surmise that the pressures of a major label contract were taking its toll and was constricting rather than helping her grow as an artist. But we’ll leave it at that.

Instead, let’s be glad that Sloan's new album sounds like she’s been liberated anew. While the songs here are mostly low-key, with effervescent melodies set to piano accompaniment, they sound compelling nonetheless.

Starting with the minimalist title track “Me Again.” In this introspective ballad, Sloan jots down her laundry-list of things to do right when she gets the chance to do so again. In it, she knows that somewhere, her proverbial tempo is skipping a beat. “There’s something broken inside my head,” she intones, then goes “I can’t wait to feel like me again.”

And she does get better. In fact, lyrically and theme-wise, the whole album is a tearing-down-the-walls, seek-the-truth exercise set to lilting melodies and voiced through Sasha Alex Sloan’s honest delivery.

“The album is a call-back to the music she used to make when it was just for her,” her recent press describes.

And we can listen to the entirety of her album and wonder where the time has gone after. As over a dozen tracks, hot spots abound, including the wistful “Cowboys Cry,” introspective “Kids” with the poignant line ‘one day before we know it, parents become the kids.” And the singer-songwriter stuff that we like, like the folky  “Glad You Did,” and “Falling Out Of Like,” (featuring Ruston Kelly), and other made for lazy-Sunday-afternoon songs such as “Good Enough,” and guitar-driven “Deep” and “Only You Can.”  These are tunes Sasha Alex Jones wrote for her sanity and amusement. We also happen to enjoy alongside her.