Melbourne’s Dylan Young looks as modern as any third-wave barista—baseball-cap clad, flanneled, poised before a microphone—on Massive Shoe ’s cover. But throughout Way Dynamic ’s third album, it’s clear that Young is a keen student of pop’s past, arranging stacked harmonies and lithe instrumentals over guitar-driven songs that veer from radio earworms to jam-band fodder and back: not a wolf in sheep’s clothing, but an old head in disguise. On his latest, Young’s major-key meditations on love and alienation are as winsome as a bay breeze, if occasionally as insubstantial.

First track “People Settle Down” throws open the windows with a blast of snare and bright keys, Young’s acoustic guitar line skating nimbly over the arrangement. His vocals enter this sunny tableau softly, hesitantly. The lyrics are all sweetness: “I wanna build a gentle house,” he avers.…