Lovers Rock

One of the more compelling mysteries in indie rock is the relationship between Murray Lightburn and Natalia Yanchak of the Dears. Lightburn is the groups founder, leader, songwriter, guitarist, and vocalist, while Yanchak is their keyboard player. Theyve been working together since 1998 and have been married since 2005. The longevity would suggest they have a reasonably happy and functional relationship, but even the most cursory examination of the Dears music makes it clear Lightburn takes an extremely dim view of romance and the world around him. So does this musical gloom and doom only exist in Lightburns mind, or are his songs a means of couples therapy that keeps him and Yanchak together? The truth is anyones guess, but 2020s Lovers Rock certainly finds the Dears thinking a great deal about love and the many things wrong with it, and its a dour set even by their pessimistic standards. Lightburn might seem somewhat optimistic about his relationships at times, yet his cynicism seems incapable of escaping him, as song titles like The Worst in Us and Well Go into Hiding make abundantly clear, and Stille Lost and I Know What Youre Thinking and Its Awful better represent this LPs frame of mind. However, in the great tradition of the Dears, Lovers Rock is also a beautifully constructed exercise in intelligent and artful indie pop, less grandiose than their 2004 triumph No Cities Left but with nearly as sophisticated an approach to dynamics, arrangements, and melody. Even when the guitars kick up some noise on No Place on Earth and Instant Nightmare!, the performances are precise and full of carefully tailored atmosphere, and Lovers Rock boasts a level of record-making craft thats as strong as any contemporary indie band in 2020. At their best, the Dears make music so beautiful that you can sometimes forget how bitter and resigned they seem to be, and Lovers Rock works the pretty music about ugly emotions angle as effectively as anything they or their peers have done in ages. ~ Mark Deming