Lawndry - Lake Life

I encounter a lot of Nashville music when I'm curating my little music podcast but don't always share it here (because you can just listen to the show). However, I wanted to call out this album Lake Life from the band Lawndry. I've had my eye on the band for awhile and they've released a handful of singles and EP's here and there over the past two years. They're fun indie rock excursions often flirting with the humorous or the absurd. Then this full-length album comes out and they've somehow stepped up their game 200%.

It's packaged as a single digital track, so you can't jump around to different songs or sample it. You should listen to it top to bottom. The production of the first few songs verges on DIY / bedroom styles but very intentionally, as it literally evokes a gathering by the lake. That may sound a little hokey or overly earnest but it's a tactic that really works well here. By the time you're 5 or 6 minutes in, the tape hiss has faded away but, mentally, you're in that place.

There's a fine mixture of melancholy and optimism to the music itself; two attributes that seem at odds with one another on paper but they manage to find the balance.

That's a lot of words just to say "I found this album, was impressed and thought you might like it" but the context of how big of a step forward this is for them should not go unnoted.