TRACKLIST

1. Cave
2. Waverley
3. Throws The Fight
4. Fall In Flight
5. Blip
6. Heaviness
7. Relocate
8. Paragon
9. Watch Me Unfold
10. The Boys Have Been Away

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When you imagine a coming-of-age, you might think of a teenager accepting their true self, or a college couple moving on after their first great heartbreak.  But there’s a later becoming too, especially for those who haven’t followed a traditional path to a nuclear family in the suburbs but have decidedly moved past the urge to carouse. Who’s their community? Where do they hang out? What will they do next?

Mid-life anxieties and hazy nostalgia are in continuous conversation with each other on Marigolds, Beauts’ expansive, emotive followup to Dalliance. The Halifax-based five-piece—Jeff Lawton (vocals), Palmer Jamieson (guitars, synths, background vocals), Darryl Smith (guitars, synths, background vocals), Erik Van Lunen (bass, synths), and Joel Waddell (drums)—dug deep into its demo archive to pull out the bones of these 10 songs. Five years later, the results kick up a lot of dust, experimenting with textures, tempos, and tones for an all-encompassing experience evoking a spectrum of reference including The War on Drugs, Big Thief, and Destroyer.

Produced by Beauts at Jamieson’s studios—first The Golden Palm in a warehouse in north-end Halifax, then at his home base, Cat Island—Marigolds finds the band building on the confident mid-tempo base of Dalliance, its 2020 pandemic-era LP. At the centre are Lawton’s lyrics and low, winsome voice. Around those they’ve built shimmering guitars, retro synth patterns, anchoring basslines, and dexterous drumming—plus a slate of guest vocalists drifting in, layer by deft layer—for songs gentle and driving, wistful and reverent.

Beauts acolytes will recognize lead track “Cave” from its earlier release as the album’s debut single, a high-energy New Wave introduction to the Marigolds vibe. That continues into “Waverley,” balancing an upbeat drumline with dark synths that underscore the worry permeating Lawton’s thoughts, closing out with a surprising, sexy saxophone solo by Jackson Fairfax-Perry (Hillsburn). Horns, this time performed by Daniel Ledwell, also appear on “Throws the Fight,” which features a guest vocal by Kim Harris and Lawton’s persistent dread: “Do you call it off? Do you breathe it all in?” “Fall in Flight” emerged from a solo writing trip Lawton took to his family’s cottage on the Kennebecasis River in rural New Brunswick. Its languid, anthemic guitar lines build to a climactic cacophony before drifting into ethereal voice and keys, fading like a mouthful of smoke. “Blip” is a slow-moving, droning callback to an adolescence that seemed so meaningful then—that first coming-of-age—but now with perspective is not so monumental. 

Side B launches into the album’s recurrent theme of in-between with the uptempo singalong “Heaviness”: “the harder the fall / the sweeter the lift,” Lawton muses as the band glitters around him under rows of Andrea Cormier’s backing vocals, high synths, and driving guitars. “Relocate” details a house-sitting stint doubling as a brief dip into adulthood—”liquor is stocked and the cupboard’s bare”—while “Paragon” finds Lawton offering an ode to his wife. The pair of songs that close Marigold showcase the two distinctive sides of Beauts: slow and regretful, buoyant and anthemic. “Watch Me Unfold,” with its churchy synths and guiding bassline mixed in with chimes and ghostly vocals, promises a build but holds at the plateau. Release is immediate with the propulsive beat of “Boys Have Been Away,” an instant show-closer about friendship that makes the record’s last line a message and a memory: “Send them all my love.”  

Beauts found light in the later, inspiration in the grey, and solace in the middle. Marigolds is what they made of it.