LAWN - BIGGER SPROUT
New Orleans based outfit Lawn brings an interesting blend of raw power with a dose of hypnotic art rock melodies. The group made up of Rui DeMagalhaes and Mac Folger follows up their 2020 release with their latest EP Bigger Sprout.
Bigger Sprout is a modern psych inspired album perfect for the summer. The release tackles a variety of themes including that of urgency juxtaposed with feelings of complacency and at points the gut punch of inadequacy. The whole album from start to finish feels like a journey through the inner workings of turmoil disguised with catchy riffs and a stop and go rhythm that allows your mind to wander and catch up to process what you just heard.
Track by track there’s a nuance, a hook, a lyric or just something that captivates your attention. From the opening track ‘Down’, the guitar immediately gets your attention and falls into a catchy song on the outside but at its core the lyrics are described by Mac Folger as “a song about romanticizing your place and time, and struggling to move on from these things.”
Though the lyrics sound somber the composition of “I’ve got something/Here worth holding/To when I am/Down” carry a different weight and really open up the theme of urgency, or the feeling of being stuck in a rut but finding the solace in something to get you out of it.
Similarly, ‘Running My Luck’ follows a similar theme echoing the words “I’m always tired of wakin’ up/ I’m always tired of feelin’ stuff/ I’m always tired of actin’ tough/ I’m always tired of running my luck,” which captures the essence of awareness and inaction that’s easy to relate with. This track builds itself up and has a comedown and build up that feels like it goes in tandem with the story being told.
One of the other highlights on the release is the upbeat fast tempo ‘Medicine Forever’ with an aggressive punch of lyrics flying from the get-go and a chorus that sounds like a big slur of words that just works on this track. These elements resemble a lot of the contemporary modern-psych adjacent artists such as Post Animal, Spirit of the Beehive and a touch of Ty Segal’s aggressiveness reverberates onto tracks such as ‘Night Life’ and ‘Prefect’. These tracks prove to be the heaviest and capture the feeling of angst and action of this release.
Bigger Sprout provides an outlet of emotions to embrace and act upon and takes us in the inner workings of an anxious moment and period of time to reflect upon. The energy is captured throughout feeling like a whirlwind of high functioning dread but ultimately feels like it does enough to stand amongst its contemporaries musically. It’ll be exciting to see where Lawn goes from here, but they seem to be going in the right direction and have a ton to build off of after Bigger Sprout.
Alfredo Luna
★★★★☆