The Lumineers, “Automatic.”

For Automatic, its fifth album, folky duo The Lumineers pulled inspiration from the Beatles’ 2021 documentary, Get Back. With a goal of finding organic immediacy, Wesley Schultz, Jeremiah Fraites and friends set up shop in Woodstock’s Utopia studio to write. They moved to recording quickly, creating immediacy.

While the band worked with David Baron (Matt Maeson) and Simone Felice (The Felice Brothers) as producers, it’s also the first time Schultz and Fraites themselves appeared as co-producers on a Lumineers record.

Their attention to detail pays off, as Automatic—the band’s first album since 2022’s Brightside—

feels alive and in the moment with noticeable urgency and vibrancy. The band enters with the pulsing thump of the drums on anthemic opener “Same Old Song.” The song references, in part, the band’s gear being stolen before a Southern California show.

“They popped the trunk and left the keys behind/ The cops pretend to care/ I’ll never see my mom’s guitar again,” Schultz sings.

There’s a sly snark in the quiet of intimacy of songs like “Asshole,” a punchy and raw number that locks into a tight groove.

“First we ever met/ You thought I was an asshole/ Probably correct/ But I still feel your shadow,”  Schultz sings.

The Lumineers’ maturity in songwriting, developed over time, is more up front than ever. Both Schultz and Fraites are dads now and draw on the experience and perspective of family life in the material. Following instrumental interlude “Strings,” the band launches into the piano-driven intensity of the title track. Schultz’s voice is particularly raw and vulnerable here, with the emotive warble.

The melody becomes decidedly folkier on the acoustic “You’re All I Got,” with only a strummed guitar and a light garnish of piano keys. That vibe carries through to the relaxed “Plasticine,” a relaxed tune with a sneaky groove, even without defined percussion.

“Mixing up all our friends and enemies/ Wasting all of your precious energy,” Schultz sings.

The band continues on the introspective path on “Ativan,” a song that starts quiet and restrained before a chorus of backing vocals kicks in toward the end, creating a crescendo-like feeling.

“If I can’t make you happy then nobody can,” Schultz proclaims, solemnly.

“Keys on the Table” captures the intimacy and immediacy for which the band was aiming. The song transforms its listeners to a couch in the corner of the studio, with the room echo adding to the atmosphere. “Better Day” adds to that feeling, with just Schultz sitting behind a piano.

Dramatic twinkling piano and swelling strings interlude “Sunflowers” leads into closing folk rocker “So Long.” The closer, a single, takes on a different character from the rest of the album. It’s rowdier, a little more Southern—a la Tom Petty—with a memorable chorus that brings the album to a lively conclusion.

Follow writer Mike DeWald at mikedewald.bsky.social.