Kevin Bronson on February 14th, 2020

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“They referred to me as a firecracker,” Lauren Ruth Ward sings on the new tune “Water Sign,” and anybody who’s spent 10 minutes in the greater Echo Park music scene these past few years can just nod.

The diminutive dynamo today announced that her new album “Vol. II” will be out March 13. Recorded with producers Matt Linesch and David Davis, it will feature previously released songs “Wise Gal,” “We Are Grown Ups,” “Valhalla” and “Super Bullshit,” among others.

“Water Sign” finds Ward again co-writing with guitarist and collaborator Eduardo Rivera, and the singer — whose vocal range and phrasing allow her to careen from belter to screamer to growler to crooner to wailer to warbler seemingly at the turn of a verse — plays a dyed-in-the-wool Scorpio on the new tune. It starts out as a chugging, bluesy confessional before swirling amid layered vocals to the declaration, “She’s dark she’s dark / got light in her heart / She’s a water sign boiling to the top.”

Put this one on simmer.

||| Watch: The video for “Water Sign”

||| Also: Stream “Super Bullshit” and “Hungry Barber”

||| Live: Lauren Ruth Ward plays Pappy & Harriet’s tonight (tickets), and she headlines the Teragram Ballroom, joined by SWIMM and Alicia Blue, on April 29 (tickets).

||| Previously: “Wise Gal,” live at the Observatory, live at the El Rey, “Sideways,” live at the Bootleg Theater, “Well, Hell,” “Make Love to Myself”