Laguna Road

Haerts deliver a hushed and folky third album with 2025s Laguna Road. The album is named after the road where the German-born/longtime Brooklyn-based duo of singer Nini Fabi and instrumentalist Benny Gebert lived and recorded the album in Pasadena, California. They had moved west following the release of 2021s Dream Nation, as well as the birth of their daughter and were just finishing up the album when the Eaton Fire swept through Pasadena, destroying much of the community where the couple made their home. Consequently, they made the difficult decision to move back east, settling in New Yorks Hudson Valley where they prepared the albums release. Where previous albums showcased the duos dreamy synth pop, Laguna Road finds them embracing a more organic, analog sound. Theres a feeling that Fabi and Gebert are leaning into their 70s pop influences and drawing inspiration from their adopted coastal surroundings. Cuts like "Letters on the Floor," "Brighter Day," and "Woman on the Line" are marked by acoustic guitars, piano, warm vocal harmonies, and even subtle string arrangements. These are intimate, delicately rendered Baroque pop songs that take more than one listen to sink in. Though written and recorded prior to the fires, Laguna Road has a bittersweet quality, one rife with themes of memory and loss. On "Letters on the Floor," Fabi sings, "Everywhere I go I think of you/Everywhere I go I look back/When Im looking back I see everything/Every little thing we had." With Laguna Road, Haerts have crafted a warm, if ever so heartbreaking love letter to Pasadena and their California dream. ~ Matt Collar