Even when the guitars kick up some noise on "No Place on Earth" and "Instant Nightmare!," the performances are precise and full of carefully tailored atmosphere, and Lovers Rock boasts a level of record-making craft that's as strong as any contemporary indie band in 2020. However, in the great tradition of the Dears, Lovers Rock is also a beautifully constructed exercise in intelligent and artful indie pop, less grandiose than their 2004 triumph No Cities Left but with nearly as sophisticated an approach to dynamics, arrangements, and melody. Lightburn might seem somewhat optimistic about his relationships at times, yet his cynicism seems incapable of escaping him, as song titles like "The Worst in Us" and "We'll Go into Hiding" make abundantly clear, and "Stille Lost" and "I Know What You're Thinking and It's Awful" better represent this LP's frame of mind. So does this musical gloom and doom only exist in Lightburn's mind, or are his songs a means of couple's therapy that keeps him and Yanchak together? The truth is anyone's guess, but 2020's Lovers Rock certainly finds the Dears thinking a great deal about love and the many things wrong with it, and it's a dour set even by their pessimistic standards. The longevity would suggest they have a reasonably happy and functional relationship, but even the most cursory examination of the Dears' music makes it clear Lightburn takes an extremely dim view of romance and the world around him.
They've been working together since 1998 and have been married since 2005. Lightburn is the group's founder, leader, songwriter, guitarist, and vocalist, while Yanchak is their keyboard player. One of the more compelling mysteries in indie rock is the relationship between Murray Lightburn and Natalia Yanchak of the Dears.
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