Nashville duo ØZWALD specialize in golden, honey-dipped vibes filtered through modern sensibilities. It’s an ineffable brand of warm, glowing desert folk rock that eschews the mainstream grunge pop of the two conspirators’ previous work—Jason Wade fronts the band Lifehouse and Steve Stout is formerly of Lost Beach.
Their latest single sets their retro, lo-fi tunings to early ’60s space age visuals, making their quietly eccentric lyrics come to life in between the blips and bleeps of NASA stock footage. The effortless vocals glide over the snappy, nuanced production, connecting the paranoia of the Atomic Age to our current socio-political climate.
Their gorgeous new album, Born in a State, is chock-full of similarly dialed-in hushed folk pop which manages to trigger deep feelings of nostalgia while pointing a finger toward the future of Nashville’s singer-songwriter scene.
