Wilmington dream pop band Lauds matches its retro sound to a moody modern world on new EP – StarNewsOnline.com

J Holt Evans III, a songwriter and guitarist with the Wilmington dream pop band Lauds, said he thinks his group should "come out as endorsers of things." Just for starters: English musician Johnny Marr of The Smiths. Pad Thai. Vaccinations. And, since he and two of his bandmates went to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Tar Heels basketball and recently retired coach Roy Williams.

Evans is just kidding around, of course. But while we're talking endorsements, Lauds recently got a big one from Wilmington-based independent label Fort Lowell Records, which released the band's self-titled debut EP on July 30.

The four songs on "Lauds" are undeniably retro in their nostalgic appeal, sounding at times like lost or forgotten tracks from late '80s or early '90s college radio. Even so, the moody yet cautiously upbeat tunes somehow fit perfectly with our pandemic-worried world.

"I love reverbed-out, echoey guitar music. Call it shoegaze, dream pop, whatever," Evans said.

On Saturday, Aug. 28, Lauds will play a masked, outdoors album-release show for the EP at Satellite Bar and Lounge on Greenfield Street with Durham band Check Minus. On Sept. 11, they'll play the Palm Room in Wrightsville Beach with indie rock act Arson Daily.

The origins of Lauds date to three years ago, after Evans and singer/guitarist/songwriter McKay Glasgow, also of Wilmington folk-rock act Tumbleweed, bonded over the songs of Neil Young. They met when Glasgow was recording Tumbleweed's 2018 album "Little Yellow House" with Evans' father, Holt Evans II, who played with the Wilmington pop band Hungry Mind Review in the '90s and early 2000s and has produced some of the best albums ever made in Wilmington, including Astro Cowboy's forever-epic "Hedonism Colosseum."

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"Lauds kind of formed through our friendship," Evans said, and soon enough he and Glasgow had joined with his younger brother, Boyce Evans, who plays drums on the record but keyboards and guitars for live shows, to create their own version of the driving, intricate, effects-laden guitar music they'd been listening to since they were in elementary school.

"Growing up with my dad, we'd ask him to get us a Nickelback CD," Holt Evans said. "He'd say, 'You know, you need to go and listen to Joy Division right now or you're grounded.'"

He remembers hearing early U2 albums "Boy" and "October" played in the car on rides to school as a kid.

"Now I feel like I can't get away from echo or delay on any guitar part I write," Evans said.

For his part, Glasgow cites the elder Evans as an influence as well.

"Just like their dad influenced them, for the last three years we've been recording together he's been giving me the same music," Glasgow said, citing such post-punk outfits as The Chameleons and New Order.

Lauds, however, put their own spin on the dream-pop genre.

The driving "Wasted Hours" and "Wait Forever" have almost surfily coastal vibes, while the more laid-back "Never Was" is infused with a kind of pretty sadness.

Album closer "Sandpiper," a song Glasgow said was inspired by growing up mere yards from the Cape Fear River, has a more sprawling, epic feel distinct from the EP's tightly constructed first three songs.

"It took us a while to get to the sound that you hear on the record," Boyce Evans said. At first, "It was more straightforward, cleaner rock. Then we kind of turned that to 11."

Boyce's brother agreed that the band wanted to "put the vocals and the guitars and the drums all on equal footing," conjuring a vibe with their sound while lyrics speak vaguely, though at times poignantly, to difficult emotions and troublesome memories.

"If people get to our lyrics we're proud of them,"Glasgow said. "But they are secondary."

The band, which started to build a local following with eight or 10 shows before the pandemic, has enough material for a few more EPs. They've also added a couple of new members, Gavin Campbell on bass and Ross Paige on drums.

In addition to a couple of self-released singles, the band also has a song on 2020's "GROW: A Compilation in Solidarity with Black Lives Matter" for Fort Lowell, which has emerged post-pandemic as Wilmington's most prominent indie label, having released new records this year from Port City acts Sean Thomas Gerard, punk-rockers Neon Belly and Lauds.

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As for the band's punchy moniker, it arises from Evans III being a "huge fan of one-syllable band names." He added that "we'd be lying" if he said the band "didn't have a spreadsheet of like 100 names that we fought tooth and nail over." (Three that didn't make the cut? Grouse, Flowerhouse and Orca Boys.)

Lauds have also been working on a completely unironic cover of Don Henley's moody 1984 hit "Boys of Summer," which, if they play it at Satellite this weekend, might provide a fitting coda to Wilmington's own hot, pandemic-infused summer.

Contact John Staton at 910-343-2343 or John.Staton@StarNewsOnline.com.

What: Lauds (EP release show), with Check Minus

When: 7 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 28

Where: Satellite Bar & Lounge, Greenfield St., Wilmington

Info: Free, 21 and up. Masked, outdoors show.

Details: FortLowell.bandcamp.com/album/lauds

Next up: Lauds plays Sept. 11 with Arson Daily at the Palm Room in Wrightsville Beach.

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Wilmington dream pop band Lauds matches its retro sound to a moody modern world on new EP - StarNewsOnline.com