Coming in hot off the back of a busy end to 2021, Sydney cult act The Laurels are more than making up for lost time over the last couple of years. With two immersive singles shared in the last part of 2021, their hot streak continues today with ‘Borrowed Time’, an immediate yet illusive taste of where their forthcoming third album will take us when it drops on March 25th.

Perhaps their most direct offering of late, ‘Borrowed Time’ trades out their usual winding psychedelia and gets straight to the point with a sinewy guitar lead that stabs alongside Luke O’Farrell’s vibrant vocals. That said, the song doesn’t totally forgo the otherworldly sonics that make The Laurels so compelling - after a jangling chorus, the band shift into a kaleidoscopic section where searing guitars tangle with layers of evocative vocals atop the track’s reliable backbeat. By the track’s end, we’re truly immersed in the wall of noise as a fiery groove thunders around us, all-encompassing yet equally self-assured, tying in nicely with the track’s themes of mindfulness and the importance of confronting things that we’d rather ignore head on.

Speaking about the creation of the track, Luke shares “originally the track was just a real straight-ahead, lo-fi garage rock song that clocked in at around two-and-a-half minutes, but once we got into the studio, Lachlan (producer of the new album) suggested letting different sections breathe, which took it in a more interesting direction. Piers threw in some really cool melodic guitar ideas in the chorus, Kat came up with some beautiful vocal harmonies, and Ben has a real “Phil Collins” moment mid-song, where he belts out a solo vocal from behind the kit.”

Paired with a new clip created by Downgrade, we see the band performing and hanging out around Sydney’s inner-west suburbs. It’s a fun watch, and one that fits cleverly with the new album’s title Homecoming, leaving us prepped and ready to discover what’s to come when the full record is unveiled next month.