NEW England singer-songwriter Merrill Garbus seems to be on a mission to prove that dissatisfaction can be something to dance to.

Her fourth album is the most overt stab at mass communication yet from an artist who clearly feels she has plenty to communicate to the masses. And considering its overriding theme is how much of a mess the world’s in, it’s remarkably proficient at getting its groove on.

As intriguing as much of her previous work has been, Garbus’s desire to paint with a huge musical palette has sometimes come across as scattergun. I Can Feel… chooses a different path, being for the most part a surprisingly kinetic album where its maker realizes that the music can also do the talking.

Opening track Heart Attack is a handclap-coated, house piano-driven four-to-the-floor cracker; Coast To Coast blends pure pop melody with dark defiance (“I know your language, but I wish it was silence"); and Look At Your Hands overlays Eighties' dance rhythms with twenty-teens standpoints.

It’s hard to imagine "being catchy" or "made for radio" being high on Garbus’ list of priorities, but that’s what these songs are: rich and inventive songwriting with a light touch.

Maybe Garbus gets the jitters about being too danceable, because the middle segment of I Can Feel… seems to reflect concerns about her residency of Serious Artistville not being renewed, and the result (Honesty, Colonizer) is splintered art-pop that confounds rather than compels. And what this album proves is that she doesn’t need to go down that road.

At its best, I Can Feel… demonstrates that weighty themes – race, politics, feminism – don’t necessarily require minimalism or bombast. Messy but original, striving to blend the confrontational with the accessible, and thematically brave while also often being lyrically vague, it at least offers a different way of having a conversation about our times.