Over the course of their previous five records, Quiet Hounds have remained a fairly mutable entity. Not changelings, mind you, able to slip in and out of entirely different skins, but adaptable enough to keep listeners off guard and on their toes. The band’s 2017 LP, Characteristics of Living Things, was a pensive and wistful affair anchored by its shimmering centerpiece “Emperors.” That album found the group experimenting in varying degrees with new textures and atmospheres, but for the most part it remained rooted in the firm clay soil of Southern indie rock, folk, and Americana the quartet had been tilling for years.