The best jokes have layers. Shane Lavers’ decision to call the new Chanel Beads record the same thing as the last Chanel Beads record began as a goof, a thumb in the eye of the idea that a creative life should be neatly portioned out for public consumption, but 2026’s ‘Your Day Will Come’ lay bare the complexity behind that sentiment. The songs add up to a melodic, daring work that poses knotty questions about the reflexivity of listening and whether it’s possible for an artist to achieve a clean break from expectations, like a dissertation you can kick back to.
The 2024 edition of ‘Your Day Will Come’ sometimes allowed its hooks to thrillingly cohere from nothing, fading out into sound beds as quickly as they arrived, but on the new record, Lavers is more disciplined, pulling away from formal experiments towards something more resolutely song-based. Its greater reliance on acoustic instruments calls to mind Alex G’s blend of aloof tunefulness and lo-fi grandeur and, in that regard, it’s true that it’s different from what came before it.
But it’s equally true that these songs are best understood as a refinement of his approach rather than something wholly separate. On ‘Song For The Messenger’, for example, the slacker ennui of Lavers’ vocal perfectly undercuts its gilt-edged refrain, immediately echoing the clean lines of 2024’s ‘Police Scanner’. When guest singer Maya McGrory returns on ‘Silver Cup’, her bullish delivery combines with gut-level bass to add ballast and heart to an arrangement that initially resembles the free-floating beauty of the first album’s ‘Idea June’.
Amid its many synthetic elements, the staging of the record’s guitars is wonderfully tactile, with the semi-metallic clang of ‘Opening In The Gate’ and the rich, airy intro to ‘Drunk Stupid In The Structure’ suggesting a less libidinous version of Martin Gore’s playing on Depeche Mode’s ‘Violator’. And there is another intriguing parallel with the English band in the way Lavers finds different ways to keep things weird and mysterious without losing sight of pop structures. Screamo howls double the hook on ‘The Coward Forgets His Nightmare’ while ear-splitting samples erupt from a wash of dreamy keys on ‘Tyler Richard’, underscoring vivid lyrics that are in thrall to unease and self-loathing: “In a dream / they beat the shit out of you.”
Excitingly, the concept of continual reinvention within a core sound suggests we are seeing only one possible future for Lavers and Chanel Beads. If there is to be a third iteration of ‘Your Day Will Come’, it might well lean into something more open-ended and abrasive – it’ll be a steep mountain to climb to better this one for woozy, unpredictable indie-pop.
Details
- Record label: Jagjaguwar
- Release date: June 26, 2026
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