Sons Of The East - SONS (2025) Hi-Res

The Sydney trio embrace their live energy on their second album. A recurring piece of fan feedback shaped Sons Of The East’s second album: “I love your recorded music, but seeing you live is a completely different experience,” keyboardist/vocalist Nic Johnston recounts to Apple Music. “So we wanted to get the record a little closer to what it might sound like to come and see us live.” Accordingly, the Sydney indie-folk trio recorded much of the album together in the same room rather than tracking their parts separately. There is, Johnston says, “a little more chaos, a little more liveliness. In a very broad sense, that’s one of the big things we wanted to bring to this record.”

Similarly impactful was the fact many of the ideas were formulated while touring. Some came while walking around empty venues before doors opened, guitar in hand (“Hard to Tell”); others while noodling on their instruments en route to the next show. “That’s probably why so many of the songs feel so good when you’re driving in a car, because a lot of them came about in those circumstances,” says guitarist/banjo player Dan Wallage.

The resulting album moves from anthemic indie-folk (“Rescue Me”) and indie-rock (“Recognise”) to pastoral folk (“10 Days”) and ’70s West Coast grooves (“Pour the Wine”), tied together by the trio’s lush, CSNY-inspired vocal harmonies.