Kevin Bronson on August 5th, 2015

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“I don’t know what I’m doin’ / I don’t know what to say / when you ask what’s in my heart these days,” Laura Burhenn sings on “Believer,” the second song on the new Mynabirds‘ album “Lovers Know.” But oh yes, she does know what she’s doing; she’s capturing those moments when the tidal waves of self-flagellation turn into the still waters of understanding. Her inner dialogues, and their (at least temporary) resolutions, make for an exceptional album. “Lovers Know” (out on Friday), is the Mynabirds’ third album for Saddle Creek, following 2010’s “What We Lose in the Fire We Gain the Flood” and 2012’s “GENERALS.”

Throughout 2013, Burhenn joined Ben Gibbard, Jenny Lewis and Jimmy Tamborello on the Postal Service’s tour, and she followed that with a year of soul-searching, driving cross-country twice and doing a little world traveling. You can almost hear the open road beneath the songs in the production of L.A.-based New Zealander Bradley Hanan Carter (of Black English, fka NO), whose baritone backs Burhenn on several songs. The album’s art-pop aspirations are fulfilled in its painterly feel — brushstrokes of swirling synths, textured by abrasive guitars and punctuated by bold electronic drums. All propel “Lovers Know” beyond the garden variety collection of pop confessionals. “Orion” conjures up a long night on an open highway under a constellation of hope; on “Velveteen” the singer cops to being fragile while sounding like Lewis’ older sister; and “Semantics” completes the sentence that begins “Love is just a matter of …” Explains Burhenn: “In ‘Semantics’ I’m asking, “Does it matter what we call things, what we call ‘Us’? And yeah, it does. It can change everything. If we call love something beautiful, if we put the energy into it being that, we can transform into that.”

||| Stream: “Wildfire” and “Semantics”

||| Live: The Mynabirds open for Ariel Pink at the Twilight Concert Series at the Santa Monica Pier on Aug. 20, and play the Echo on Oct. 9.