Life Is Beautiful! Life Is Beautiful! Life Is Beautiful!
The Dears
Next Door
7 November 2025
Montreal’s the Dears were at an impasse after 2020’s Lover’s Rock. Frontman Murray Lightburn and his wife, Natalia Yanchak (keys, vocals), fulfilled rescheduled dates for the record and embarked upon shows celebrating the 20th anniversary of their renowned No Cities Left (2004). That is not to mention other media projects that grabbed their interest and took hold. As a result, over five years have passed since we last heard from the band.
Life Is Beautiful! Life Is Beautiful! Life Is Beautiful! arose from a spontaneous moment at one of the No Cities Left shows. Lightburn said, “I was on stage surrounded by wonderful musicians, playing songs I wrote in my 20s. My kids and my mom were sitting up on the balcony of the theatre. Natalia was just to my right. I told the audience that sometimes it gets tough, but that life is beautiful. I asked the audience to say it with me, three times: A mantra; a wish; an affirmation.”
Nestled in the warmth of that heartfelt sentiment, we are asked to consider their latest record. Even when things seem to be at their most trying, the Dears encourage us to realize this fleeting time on earth is a beautiful thing that’s worth celebrating.
Those familiar with the Dears’ work will be taken aback by the complexity of their compositions and the diverse sources of inspiration. “Doom Pays” applies a 1970s glam rock flair that sounds nothing like the band have ever recorded. They routinely use strings, but this record employs horns with equal fervor.
The infectious “Deep in My Heart” features a pulsating groove that evokes the sound of Fleetwood Mac. Considering the addition of horns, it brings a rhythm one might expect from Dave Matthews Band, something wholly unconventional in this universe. Opener “Gotta Get My Head Right” even showcases multiple parts, meaning their more comfortable Morrissey inclinations (“Dead Contacts”) now feel foreign.
The themes also vacillate between what’s predictable and clearly not. The lead single, “Babe, We’ll Find a Way”, puts relationships front and center, suggesting that larger problems are secondary to those that take place at home—a rather insular view on how to cope with the world’s troubles. Conversely, the urgent “Tears of a Nation” inspires a particular response to conflict: “Now war is at our doorstep / And it’s a threat to our way of life / Are we to build up our resistance / And put up one hell of a fight?” The track is steeped in dark tones, with Lightburn chasing his howling vocal refrain with screams of pain.
Life Is Beautiful! Life Is Beautiful! Life Is Beautiful! feels like a deliberate shift in several ways. The Dears shuffled through a number of members over the years, the only fundamental constants being Lightburn and Yanchak. Even with some longer-tenured bandmates, such as Jeff Luciani on drums, we tend to set aside the contributions of other musicians in favor of the two main ones. Of course, their chamber pop sound had to come from somewhere, but that’s really secondary to their central story.
Couples in indie bands are not a new phenomenon, but many do not withstand the test of time, either due to the pressures of that environment or simply natural dissolution. On the surface, even the most steadfast relationships tend to break down (I’m looking at you, Thurston Moore and Kim Deal). For every Ira Kaplan and Georgia Hubley, there’s a Jack and Meg White, Adrianna Lenker and Buck Meek, and now Win Butler and Régine Chassagne.
The Dears feature one of those rare, unwavering unions. We have learned to revere Lightburn and Yanchak for bringing us into intimate spaces that were previously reserved for spouses and partners. Consider the personal photos used for the cover art of Times Infinity Volume 1 (2015) and Volume 2 (2017). The group have never shied away from their relationship being the reason for their existence. “Our Life”, a mid-tempo meditation about the journey they’re on together, is, however, as close as they can get to approximating what fans have become accustomed to hearing.
For a band this far into their career, it’s surprising they are willing to take a certain amount of risk (especially following the retrospective act of an anniversary tour). Love is not the central theme in Life Is Beautiful! Life Is Beautiful! Life Is Beautiful! That means other issues have come to the fore. The returns aren’t as immediate, even if the group’s beauty ultimately shines through. Lightburn sounds willing to expand the Dears’ universe, not at the detriment of losing something they have worked so hard to achieve, but rather asserting his confidence that they will emerge whole.
