The Lumineers, the beloved indie-folk duo comprised of Jeremiah Fraites and Wesley Schultz, have returned with a humor-tinged and vulnerable take on life, love, and grief with their fifth studio album Automatic. Despite leaning into a slightly different, more openly bold anthemic sound, the album is consistent with what may be expected to come from the band. Per usual, each lyric is written with clear intentionality. Where the band has gone astray and allowed themselves to drift is in the instrumentation.
Automatic explores complex themes with a deliberate air of intimacy and levity through well-placed satire. Speaking of satire, “Same Old Song” heads the album off. Propelled by a quickened heartbeat of drums and speckled with orchestration that harkens back to the band’s Cleopatra era, The Lumineers reintroduce themselves. The track is refreshingly anthemic and ironic in that there are elements – the keys, in particular, are reminiscent of those found in “Ophelia”; they are authentically ‘The Lumineers’ while the rest of the song is strikingly new in tonality for the band. With that, Schultz’s vocals cut through and deliver painfully relatable lines in an almost pathetically amusing way, such as, “I don’t know what wrong with me / I killed the mood so naturally / The guests begin to make me feel alone / The party has been done for hours.”
“Asshole” follows suit and is confessional in its lyrics while also maintaining levity, and being a slightly more subdued anthem than “Same Old Song”. It isn’t as powerful as its predecessor in terms of its instrumentation, as the pace of the song is a bit slower, but regardless it is still a pleasant tune whose comic relief is much appreciated.
Serving as a turning point in the project, “Strings” does what its title suggests by presenting a beautiful arrangement that is sure to be underrated for its simple orchestration. Though it is wholly instrumental and just an interlude of sorts, the song sets the stage for the title track.
“Automatic” has an almost Bon Iver delivery. Between the backing vocals, slow progression, and simply complex lyricism, the song perfectly captures the monotony of everyday life and the weird frustrating comfortability that comes with it. The pre-chorus is especially gut-wrenching in its modest rawness as Schultz sings, “Oh, lover, is it ever gonna be enough? / Oh, my lover, is it ever gonna be enough?” Where the song really shines is in the orchestration. If there is one thing Fraites does exceptionally well that truly sets The Lumineers apart, it is how he plays and composes at the piano. There is something so gentle about how he approaches it that just infuses it with an intangible authenticity of emotion. Paired with the slow incorporation of strings, the atmosphere sets the song apart and gives it an understated charm.
Following the theme of emotionally charged and highly contemplative tracks, “You’re All I Got” is rich in its storytelling. Tender and cleverly poetic in its communication, it is an uncomplicated song on the whole, but nonetheless meaningful and impactful. The instrumentation creates a landscape that lets the lyrics resonate; by being light and open from a production standpoint, the vocals are given the focus and Schultz’s easy delivery lets the lyrics sit on their own. With references to Siamese cats and Sisyphus, Fraites and Schultz weave a wonderfully poetic story of resilience despite a foreboding aura of hopelessness. With lyrics like “And I can’t give it up / Fillin’ all the holes in us / You’re all that I got” and “You’re all that I got / And I can’t give it up like Sisyphus / Below the rock,” the song gives voice to those situations when you know the end of something is approaching, and despite any efforts made to prolong to end it will come. “You’re All I Got” is fraught with heartache made even more bittersweet by the efforts to run away from it.
“Plasticine” reiterates the humor of the first few songs, but is effectively one of the least remarkable on the project. However, it may be said that the voice note that briefly breaks the fourth wall is a nice touch and adds some texture to the track. “Ativan” too is a welcome break of gaiety. Like its namesake, the anti-anxiety medication, the track brings about some tongue-in-cheek joy with lyrics like “If I can’t make you happy, then nobody can” that play on the role of Ativan on someone’s life and the role that someone may take in another person’s.
Eighth in the listing is “Keys on the Table” and is the other least remarkable track. Frankly, it’s repetitive of what was said in “You’re All I Got”, which said what it needed to just fine. Unfortunately, the instrumentation of “Keys on the Table” doesn’t add too much to reinforce the song’s value either.
“Better Day,” generally leans into a more positive narrative as it sings of hope, but once again, it just falls a little short in comparison to some of the other tracks on the project. That said, the instrumentation leads nicely into the next track, “Sunflowers”.
As another completely instrumental track, “Sunflowers,” is just evocative of “Patience”, and as such is a nice addition to Automatic. The orchestration of the track is gorgeous and painfully delicate with the intricacies it explores through the various tonalities and swells it employs in its composition.
Bringing the album to a close, we have the aptly named track, “So Long”, the most distinctly different sounding track than just about anything the duo has ever released, especially on this album. It’s a bit darker with heavier hitting drums and some eerie strings that come in and shake up the atmosphere of the track, paired with the biblical allusions that follow later in the song, giving the track a new quality and agency: “And if you lost your way to Heaven / Buy another ladder from Jacob / Needed it to matter / I don’t care if your family hates it.”
From start to end, Automatic traverses some ground. It begins on a pretty bright note, goes through some ebbs that touch into some darker territory both sonically and lyrically, and then eventually ends in a place that’s sort of in between. In the end, there’s some semblance of hope left, even if it’s a little unconventional and perhaps just slightly jarring when you reconsider the album’s complete progression.
