Kevin Bronson on July 27th, 2020

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Indie-rock lives. It’s just that precious little of it these days ranks as erudite, free-form, homage-free and ultimately lustrous as the music of L.A.-based quartet Young Jesus.

On “Welcome to Conceptual Beach” (out Aug. 14), their fifth album and third for Saddle Creek Records, mastermind John Rossiter and bandmates Marcel Borbón, Eric Shevrin and Kern Haug pretty much shed whatever vestiges remained of their beginnings as a Midwestern emo (-type) band. The strip of sand upon which they’ve arrived in 2020 is really not occupied by anybody else; fans of math- and post-rock, jam bands and the experimental fringes of “alternative” will be right at home in their soundscapes, whose improvisational feel belie their recorded precision.

Beyond instrumentation, though, Rossiter’s lyrics are (and have been) the difference-maker. They are poetry disguised as ennui, as revelatory to merely read as they are in song. (Try it with the video for “(un)Knowing.”)

Last week’s release of that single followed “Root and Crown” earlier this month. The visuals for both are available at their Conceptual Beach website, along with others from their “dream archives.”

||| Watch: The video for “(un)Knowing”

||| Also: Watch the video for “Root and Crown”