The Aubreys

“This is a coming of age record,” says The Aubreys’ Finn Wolfhard. “It’s the sound of us growing up.” Indeed, there’s something preternaturally mature about The Aubreys’ extraordinary full-length debut, Karaoke Alone. Recorded with engineer Andrew Humphrey and Twin Peaks’ Cadien Lake James and Colin Croom, the collection is deeply reflective, reckoning with growth and change, perception and identity, love and loneliness, all in the face of an unpredictable world that only seems to grow more bewildering by the day. The songs are dreamy and immersive here, balancing psych-rock and singer/songwriter sensibilities with intentionally raw, lo-fi production, and the band’s performances are transfixing to match, delivered with a subtlety and nuance that belies Wolfhard and bandmate Malcolm Craig’s young age. The duo may not be old enough to drink yet, but they’ve managed to craft something utterly intoxicating with Karaoke Alone, a remarkable debut that hints at everything from The Flaming Lips and LCD Soundsystem to The Pixies and Tame Impala as it explores the liminal space between youth and adulthood with keen insight and unflinching honesty. “I'd been acting so much for so long and Malcolm had been so focused on his studies that we'd never had the time to figure out who we were,” says Wolfhard, who’s perhaps best known from his starring role on Netflix’s Stranger Things. “That's what a lot of these songs are about.” The Aubreys may be young, but they’re wise beyond their years.