Lauds

Lauds are a noisy dreampop band from Wilmington, NC.

Merge Records put Durham on the map in the ‘90s, North Carolina’s been a hotbed of incredible indie rock tunes, from Superchunk and Archers of Loaf in Chapel Hill to the Asheville explosion with MJ Lenderman, Indigo de Souza, and Wednesday garnering national attention over the past couple years. The coastal city of Wilmington’s been overlooked all throughout, though, and Lauds is working to change that.

The band, which began at the tail end of the 2010s with guitarist/vocalists J. Holt Evans and McKay Glasgow, dropped a couple of EPs in the early 2020s before kicking off 2023 with their debut LP. Imitation Life, which dropped that January, sharpened the band’s style of aqueous dream-pop into a crystalline edge, and the band’s solidified lineup—songwriters Evans and Glasgow plus Gavin Campbell and Boyce Evans—folded in some foggy post-punk for good measure. It was the band’s surest, most expansive project to date.

It was, at least. Just as Lauds ushered in 2023 with Imitation Life, now they’re ushering in 2024 with “Honest.” The single drops January fourth, and according to the band it’s their stab at ‘pure pop.’ But don’t get it twisted, this is a Lauds track through and through. Expect the same driving rhythm section that powered so much of Imitation Life, and those washy, swaying riffs. It’s the same Lauds you know and love, but they’re catchier, janglier, and better than ever.

- Zac Djamoos