Writing on their debut Blood on the Tracks, which came out on Forged Artifacts back in 2018, we described the Lawn sound as “difficult to pin down,” citing how the pair’s habit of swapping the role of lead gave the record “an unpredictable and off-kilter feel.” With “the immediacy of raw and spiky post-punk” and “golden 60s melodies,” Lawn are a band in constant motion, bouncing between two opposing poles and always surprising us with just where they end up.

The style relies on trust and intuition between Folger and DeMagalhaes. “There is a coolness to being able to lean into whatever comes out,” the former says. “Not worrying about genres or anything like that. I trust Rui to know what to play, and I trust my own instincts too. Just keeping what we came up with the first time.”

This autumn sees the release of Johnny, a brand new album to be released via Community Records and Muscle Beach Records, that continues this work. The record promises to be as varied and inventive as anything Lawn have produced to date, finding inspiration in upbeat 90s indie rock and heavy art-punk. First single ‘Nighttime Creatures’ provides an alluring glimpse into just what this might mean. With a warm spirit and subtle psych flourishes, the song is relaxed but loaded with something more pressing too, clouds hovering over the restrained style, anxieties creeping into even the most inviting situations.

“[The song] is about wanting to be at the party but also hating it,” Folger says. “My own natural inclination to be extroverted and the overwhelming anxiety of being in a crowd. I wrote the words to this song while watching a group of slightly aged-out frat guys yell at each other from my second-story window.”

Johnny is out on the 4th September via Community Records and Muscle Beach Records and you can pre-order it now.

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Now Golden is back with a self-titled follow-up, a record which sees the Casey Golden sound expand with the introduction of violins, flutes, pedal steel, vocal harmonies, and piano, The result owes as much to 1960s Brazilian tropicalia as it does traditional folk pop. The label say the album “offers a space to reflect, ponder [and] question, as you swim through a murky ocean just off of a Brazilian shoreline, where all the past lives go to tango and drink Tecate”.

‘The Corners of My Song’ is the perfect example of this, winding pedal steel mingling with Golden’s vocals, soft as the white sand of an exotic shore. As such, a certain mellowness permeates the track, though one tinged with a sense of longing or nostalgia, something in the vocals or lyrics suggesting a gentle sort of sadness that’s intrinsic to time passing and people changing.

The self-titled full-length, Casey Golden, is out today (10th March) on Muscle Beach Records, and you can grab your copy now from the Casey Golden Bandcamp page.

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