Kevin Bronson on December 14th, 2016

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The most vital syllable in Thorcraft Cobra’s metal-sounding band name is “craft” — contrary to windstorm of reverb-laden guitar-pop that has blown through L.A. in recent years, the music of Billy Zimmer and Tammy Glover abides a certain precision. Their make-every-note-count approach was displayed on their debut EP in 2010 and on the 2013 full-length “Count It In.” And they return with a similar batch of nuanced pop-rock on Jan. 27 when they release their sophomore album “The Distance.”

The duo says the album references a probably apocryphal story about President Abraham Lincoln, who supposedly said that it wasn’t remarkable that he was born in a log cabin and became the President; it was remarkable that he was born in a log cabin and became a lawyer. “I think about starting from behind in life and the distance that some of us travel to get to a multicultural world of ideas, rationality, science, empathy and art,” Glover says. “I’m from Buffalo, N.Y., and the distance in front of me will never be as profound as the distance I covered — physically, intellectually, emotionally, spiritually — to get here.”

Zimmer (once of the Brown Eyed Susans) and Glover (who drums for Sparks) made “The Distance” in a house where Ricky Nelson supposedly once lived, with producer Rob Schnapf, and he plays on the record along with contributors Brett Farkas (Lord Huron, Aimee Mann, Boys School), the Juno Award-winning engineer Russell Broom and Teddy “Zig-Zag” Andreadis (Carole King, Guns N’ Roses).

In the single “Caught in Between,” the duo prove that there’s not a single ounce of queasy ambivalence that a giant chorus won’t wash away.

||| Stream: “Caught in Between”