Local Natives Adapt with Grace and Gentleness to Life’s Changes on their Sublimely Yearning Sixth Album “But I’ll Wait For You”

Local Natives embrace life’s capacity for grand and daunting sea-change on their sixth record But I’ll Wait For You. Those themes hit close to home for the SoCal indie-rock quintet, especially with the news that co-vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Kelcey Ayer will depart the band after their upcoming appearance at BeachLife on May 3-5th in Redondo Beach and subsequent U.S. tour.

Local Natives have always excelled at capturing the elusive wisps of emotion that ebb beneath memories of intimacy and heartache. Adorning them with intricately resplendent instrumentation and the beaming vitality of their sublime harmonies. Doused and aglow with affectionate longing, But I’ll Wait For You (a companion piece to their last album Time Will Wait For No One) arrives as one of their most poignant projects to date.

“You and I / Nowhere nothing no time,” Taylor Rice and Ayer coo in unison on “Alpharetta,” the album’s transcendent opening ballad. “It’s a cruel, cruel kindness / That the moment’s over the moment it arrives.” On the scattered rhythms of “Neon Memory” — “Life goes on ahead / We’re watching it flicker” — they marvel at the dazzlingly surreal passage of time they find themselves at the mercy of.

Those same sentiments reemerge within “Camera Shy,” sharing the frame with bleakly prescient imagery (“Swerving slowly through an empire in decline”) as refulgent keys and gleaming riffs illuminate the song’s powerful pining. Across the record, those bittersweet yearnings take on a variety of forms, from the propulsive recollection of a first heartbreak (“Ending Credits”) to a buoyant reluctance toward letting go (“April”).

Then there are moments when wistfulness gives way to the sobering force of inexorable change, as on the softly sizzling “Throw It In The Fire.” Near the end of the album the glassy and swelling melodies of “Raincoat” carry along a similarly hard-to-hear message: “Don’t want you to change / But I know you can’t stay.”

Yet through all the lovelorn restlessness shines the reminder that every boundary that separates us from the ones we care about — be they family, friends, or lovers — is just an elaborate convention or new beginning in disguise. Rather fittingly then, the album’s title track and finale “But I’ll Wait For You” ends with a soaring intonation of devotion.

Surrounded by their gently radiant harmonies, Local Natives navigate the uncertainty that permeates the world around them with characteristic grace and splendor. They emerge amid profound and quaking change with a bolstering faith that they might learn from life’s mutability, growing evermore adaptable and attuned to its shifts, and forever guided by the earnestly enduring bonds they’ve forged with one another.

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Words: Steven Ward

But I’ll Wait For You is now available on all streaming platforms. See Local Natives on their upcoming U.S. tour and at BeachLife 2024 on May 3-5th in Redondo Beach, CA.

Visit Local Natives on their website and Instagram to stay updated on new releases and tour announcements.

Listen to But I’ll Wait For You the new album from Local Natives below!

Local Natives Tour
May 4 – Redondo Beach, CA – BeachLife Festival
May 6 – Albuquerque, NM – El Rey Theater – Presented by KBAC
May 8 – Oklahoma City, OK – The Jones Assembly
May 9 – Fayetteville, AR – JJ’s Live
May 10 – Columbia, MO – The Blue Note – Presented by KBXR
May 11 – Louisville, KY – Mercury Ballroom – Presented by WFKP
May 14 – Omaha, NE – The Admiral Theater
May 15 – Kansas City, MO – The Truman
May 17 – Boulder, CO – Boulder Theater
May 18 – Aspen, CO – Belly Up
May 20 – Las Vegas, NV – House of Blues
May 21 – Tucson, AZ – Rialto Theatre
May 23 – Santa Cruz, CA – The Catalyst
Aug 23 – Bend, OR – Hayden Homes Amphitheater*
Sep 21 – Columbia, MD – Merriweather Post Pavilion ^
Nov 6 – Fort Worth, TX – Tannahill’s Tavern & Music Hall
Nov 7 – San Antonio, TX – The Aztec Theatre
Nov 8 – Houston, TX – White Oak Music Hall
Nov 9 – New Orleans, LA – The Joy Theater
Nov 11 – Orlando, FL – The Plaza Live
Nov 12 – Fort Lauderdale, FL – Revolution Live
Nov 14 – Charleston, SC – Charleston Music Hall
Nov 15 – Charlotte, NC – The Fillmore Charlotte
Nov 16 – Raleigh, NC – The Ritz
Nov 17 – Norfolk, VA – The NorVa
Nov 19 – New Haven, CT – College Street Music Hall
Nov 21 – Toronto, ON – The Danforth Music Hall
Nov 22 – Great Rapids, MI – The Intersection
Nov 23 – Madison, WI – The Sylvee

*w/ Mt Joy
^ w/ Vance Joy

Local Natives
But I’ll Wait For You
Loma Vista Recordings
April 19, 2024

01 Alpharetta
02 Throw It In The Fire
03 Neon Memory
04 Camera Shy
05 As Soon As You Arrive
06 Ending Credits
07 Raincoat
08 April
09 Walk Before You Run
10 But I’ll Wait For You