No city is perfect, but Decatur comes pretty close. Located inside the perimeter of Atlanta but operating as its own city, Decatur is a hyper-progressive yet family-focused historic town where residents sling the catchphrase “Decatur, where it’s greater.” Another local mantra is “Keep it in-Decatur” (pronounced like indie-catur). The twon prides itself on being different, but better. The five twentysomethings who make up the band Lunar Vacation call this place home, and it’s no coincidence that their new album Everything Matters, Everything’s Fire feels a bit like Decatur: as communal as it is distinctive.
Their debut album Inside Every Fig is a Dead Wasp was released in 2021, and it’s a perfectly tasteful indie rock album—but it sounded like the members were tiptoeing into their careers, their identity as a group still a bit uncertain. Their music has ranged from punchy green indie pop (see: the Artificial Flavors EP from 2018) to the surfy rock on Inside Every Fig. On Everything Matters, however, they slide closer to the shoegaze side of the indie pop spectrum and kick their art into high gear with inventive soundscapes and consistently snappy lyrics.
Once a cluster of Atlanta high schoolers who were unsure whether this thing had legs, Lunar Vacations’ members are now all in: They live in one big house together in Decatur, Brockhampton-style, and their newfound familial lifestyle has luckily spilled into their sound. Everything about the album points to abundance—more friends, more groceries, more confidence, more life. In a time where many pop artists are content to quite literally scream nihilism from the rooftops (“Nothing Matters,” after all), it’s a nice change of pace to hear songs that embrace the meaning in everything, even the stuff that sucks.
On “Sick,” songwriter/guitarist Gep Repasky drolly delivers the line “Luxury apartments popping anywhere beside them,” followed by “Comedy is perfect when it’s ugly,” which is a tidy summary of the freakishness with which Atlanta has expanded the last few years. “Set the Stage,” one of the best songs on the album penned by Repasky, sounds like a low-key love song at first pass, but it unfurls into a pounding shoegaze stunner. “Better Luck” is a spiritual sequel to “Set the Stage,” tracking a doomed love affair from disintegration to regret to reality: “Happiness is coming, and it was never with me.”
The lyrics are good, but the arrangements are better, giving way to a smart indie-rock sound throughout the record. Production quirks—the brandishing of jaw harp here, the clank of a vibraphone there—liven up the typical three- or four-piece indie-rock song formula. “Tom” (which was named for the devil-may-care Tom Sandoval of Vanderpump Rules fame) lights up with catchy guitars, while “Sick” is a darker but measured earworm, and closer “You Shouldn’t Be” features a tasty drink of electric feedback. Even though it chronicles the dark experience of Repasky’s psychiatric emergency, “Just For Today,” is a sunny Georgia rock jam.
Lunar Vacation cited Twin Peaks and Mac DeMarco as inspiration when they first started playing Atlanta dives years ago, but now they look to Yo La Tengo and Sonic Youth for guidance on songs like “You Shouldn’t Be,” which ends on a meditative echo of the album’s title: “Everything matters, everything’s fire, to me.” The songs have a warm, lived-in feeling, and the album is only less engaging when the drums lose the plot and the shoegaze tendencies sound a little sleepy.
Everything Matters, Everything’s Fire is dreamy, but it’s dreamy with a purpose. The lyrics are often perky, but they don’t read as pie-in-the-sky optimism. These dreamscapes are tethered to reality, which has been as harsh on Lunar Vacation as any other small-time creator or musician—or human person—the last few years. Adversity doesn’t equal hopelessness. There are still crushes to swoon over, walks to take, Bravo programs to catch up on, and communities to nurture. Life—or in Lunar Vacation’s case, music—doesn’t have to fall to pieces after a season of change. Different, but better.
Ellen Johnson is a former Paste music editor and forever pop culture enthusiast. Presently, she’s a full-time editor and part-time writer. You can find her in Atlanta, or rewatching Little Women on Letterboxd.
