Sylvan Esso was not meant to be a band. Rather, Amelia Meath had written a song called 'Play It Right' and sung it with her trio Mountain Man. She'd met Nick Sanborn, an electronic producer working under the name Made of Oak, in passing on a shared bill in a small club somewhere. A year later, their self-titled debut'a collection of vivid addictions concerning suffering and love, darkness and deliverance'arrived as a necessary pop balm, an album stuffed with songs that don't suffer the longstanding complications of that term