When you put on Foster the People’s newest album and you’re bopping along to the infectious funk-disco beat of the first track, you might not notice the growing dread in the lyrics, as dark as the music is silly-light. Welcome back, Mark Foster.

“My friends were going out last night, and I still haven’t heard from them,” he sings in “See You in the Afterlife,” a tune that has scary newspaper headlines, an empty Colosseum and even a reference to the war in Ukraine. “It’s like we’ve all been hypnotized.”

It has been seven years since 2017’s “Sacred Hearts Club,” and Foster and his bandmates haven’t lost a step, making thoughtful, first- rate pop for a jangled, insecure era with the 11-track “Paradise State of Mind,” the majority written with Isom Innis and with Foster producing the lion’s share for the first time.

Like the last collection, Foster the People has glistening pop beside complex tuners, with many of the songs dipping into experimental territory or heavy distortion, like the unconventional flute solo on “Sometimes I Wanna Be Bad” and “Glitchzig,” which goes through a half- dozen time signatures, shrieking trumpet and elements of Kraftwerk.

Highlights include “Lost in Space,” filled with a falsetto chorus and hand-claps, which sounds like it was designed for a roller rink in the ’70s — with unsteady lyrics like “I let the darkness in to teach me” — and “Let Go,” which starts out like a dreamy blast of positive vibes until the last third, when what can only be described as heavenly robots hijack the song, singing, “To be broken is to be set free.”

The heavily distorted, synthetic-sounding “Feed Me” is like a come-on in the digital era — “I want to hack your code and be your anti-hero/ Turn you on and let my one activate your zero” — while Foster reveals perhaps his motivation for all this wonderful, creepy weirdness on the last song, “A Diamond to be Born.”

“I look at myself through a broken lens,” he sings, so spacey that it’s almost a prayer. “Try my best to keep from unraveling.” You and us both, brother.

Along the way, he’s given us another diamond. — Mark Kennedy, Associated Press

The titanium sheen is a distraction. The cover of “Rayo,” Colombian singer- rapper J Balvin’s first album since 2021’s “Jose,” depicts a futuristic vehicle wrapped in chrome. On closer inspection, it’s a Volkswagen Golf, a popular, nondescript city car. But in Balvin’s universe, it’s blinged out — his smiley face logo emblazoned on the rims underneath opened scissor doors, a feature typically reserved for a Lamborghini.

It serves as a perfect allegory for the album: a familiar figure, made in Balvin’s image, and a direct reflection of his early hustle and future success.

The VW Golf, it turns out, was his first car. And on “Rayo,” J Balvin returns to his first love: feel-good, party-ready music.

Across 15 tracks of life- affirming dembow and synth-pop, stacked to the brim with collaborations, “Rayo” does not attempt innovation. Rather, it succeeds as a single, self- sustaining playlist, all high-octane club bangers for the backyard and South Beach in equal measure.

Not that there aren’t new attempts: “3 Noches,” one of the few solo songs on the album, experiments with Afrobeats. On “Gato,” Balvin enlists Catalan urbano singer Bad Gyal, whose raspy vocal tone offers a new texture.

But it is, of course, reggaetón, that drives “Rayo.” Highlights are found in some of the energetic collaborations, like in the earworm “Origami” with Ryan Castro and Blessd, or “Doblexxó,” which features fellow Colombian superstar Feid.

“It’s a song that represents a lot of Medellín’s reggaetón,” Balvin said in a recent interivew. “We are two ‘paisas’ (countrymen), with paisa slang in this song.”

Then there are more classic moments, like “Polvo de tu Vida” and “Lobo” with Puerto Rican reggaetón legends Chencho Corleone and Zion of Zion & Lennox, respectively.

Cool downs are few and far between in this audio party, perhaps limited to the ballad “Stoker,” with regional Mexican musician Carín León — a rare risk that pays off for Balvin. — Maria Sherman, Associated Press