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If you’ve ever had a chance to see Julian Cubillos work, then you know his uncanny ability to play mastermind while embodying both warmth and calming cool. The Brooklyn-via-Los Angeles singer, songwriter, guitarist and producer has emerged with the follow-up to his 2015 punk rock glam party Evil in the form of a more stripped-down and direct rock record—and perhaps his most fully-realized to date—In Heaven.

With production credits spanning dozens of projects across Los Angeles and New York, it is perhaps Cubillos’ own music that best reflects his unassuming nice-guy genius sentiment. Time Out New York describes his production style as “somehow [blending] genres like garage-punk, electro-pop and jazzy lo-fi into a coherent, fresh sound.”

Recorded live in a Flatbush, Brooklyn living room with a deft cast of musicians, In Heaven is his most focused work to date, with a tight band sound and Cubillos’ down-home, bedroom art pop in full display.

Whether cutting right to the heart with the bombastic album opener “The End,” navigating unabashed bedroom soul on the quasi title-track “Heaven,” crushing through lovesick grunge on “Pain,” or swooning over a blissed-out romance on the closing track “Sail” (featuring fellow Californian genre-defiers Ivy Meissner and Christian Lee Hutson on backing vocals), Cubillos keeps us engaged and on our toes, emerging atop a mountain of his own forming, a master of his own distinct and self-actualized brand of pop music.

Photo Credit: Ivy Meissner