Content Guide
SOFT Review
LANY’s sixth studio album drops October 10, 2025, marking the indie-pop duo’s most vulnerable work yet. Born from frontman Paul Klein’s near-fatal car accident in June 2024, “SOFT” is a 10-track meditation on choosing emotional openness in a hardening world. The album represents both a return to the band’s synth-drenched roots and a profound evolution shaped by life-altering trauma. With two singles already released, the glossy “Know You Naked” and the achingly nostalgic “Last Forever,” the project signals LANY’s commitment to protecting vulnerability as their greatest strength.
This album matters because it confronts a question rarely explored in pop music: how do we stay soft when life tries to harden us? Klein’s recovery from broken bones and a shattered sense of invincibility informs every corner of this record, transforming what could have been another collection of heartbreak anthems into something more urgent and philosophical. For a band that has spent a decade perfecting the art of melancholic synth-pop, “SOFT” might be their most honest statement yet.
A Vespa, a windshield, and everything that came after (SOFT Review)
June 6, 2024, changed everything for Paul Klein. The LANY frontman was riding his Vespa home from the gym in Los Angeles when a car making a left turn at La Brea and Santa Monica Boulevard struck him. The impact sent him flying through the vehicle’s windshield. Twenty minutes later, he woke up in an ambulance with no memory of the collision itself, but plenty of awareness about what followed: a broken face, broken shin bone, torn calf, and a shoulder barely held together.
What’s remarkable isn’t just that Klein survived. It’s what he chose to do with the experience. Two months later, LANY was back performing at European festivals with their frontman on crutches. But something fundamental had shifted. Klein spent that summer in a lawn chair reading books he’d never made time for before. The Alchemist. The Grapes of Wrath. He stopped racing through moments. He became aware of his surroundings in a way he hadn’t been in years.
That first moment of consciousness in the ambulance carried spiritual weight. When the paramedic asked him to move his fingers and toes and he could, Klein’s response was pure gratitude. He felt chosen somehow, like he’d been given an unearned second chance. This sense of being spared, of receiving a gift he didn’t deserve, shapes every decision made on “SOFT.”
The accident fundamentally changed Klein’s songwriting. The songs he wrote after the crash felt different to him, better in ways he couldn’t quite explain. He doesn’t take credit for the improvement, framing it instead as something bestowed rather than earned. One month after the accident, on July 11, 2024, Klein found himself in Sterling, Kansas, a town of about 2,000 people, working with Nashville songwriter Nicolle Galyon. There, far from the Los Angeles music industry machinery, he wrote “Last Forever,” the album’s closing track and second single. The song became the most direct expression of his brush with mortality.
Two singles reveal the album’s emotional range (SOFT Review)
LANY released “Know You Naked” on August 1, 2025, as the lead single and statement of intent. Co-written with Nicolle Galyon and Mark Trussell, and co-produced with longtime collaborator Tommy King, the track sits firmly in LANY’s wheelhouse: twilight synths, glossy production, and Klein’s signature talk-sing vocal delivery exploring physical and emotional intimacy. The title’s double meaning captures the album’s broader theme about vulnerability requiring courage.
Musically, “Know You Naked” showcases LANY’s upgraded production arsenal. Legendary bassist Pino Palladino, whose credits include The Who and D’Angelo, provides low-end foundation. Andrew Aged’s guitars add texture beneath Tommy King’s shimmering synthesizers and piano arrangements. Grammy-winning mixer Mark “Spike” Stent polished the track to a radio-ready gleam. The result is a song with shinier, dreamier polish than previous LANY work, though some listeners wonder if this represents genuine evolution or just extremely polished formula.
“Last Forever,” released September 5, represents the album’s emotional core and has received notably warmer reception. This shimmering synth-ballad, written just one month after Klein’s accident in that isolated Kansas songwriting room, builds gradually into something more than a conventional love song. It’s a reflection on survival, resilience, and hope. The track combines piano-driven intimacy with expansive, cinematic production that recalls LANY’s 2017 self-titled era, the sound that first won them a devoted global following.
The music video doesn’t shy from autobiography. Directed by Isaac Ravishankara, who previously helmed their breakthrough “Malibu Nights” video, it features gripping sequences showing Klein’s physical recovery, walking on crutches, engaging in solitary reflection. These aren’t metaphors. They’re documentation of his actual healing process. The visual narrative transforms “Last Forever” from a conventional love song about lifelong commitment into something rawer: a man holding onto what matters when everything feels fragile.
Fan response has been overwhelming. Social media is filled with listeners describing hours-long crying sessions. Multiple fans immediately designated it as their wedding song. The song transports listeners back to LANY’s self-titled era, positioning itself as both nostalgia and renewal. It’s LANY sounding like themselves at their most essential.
The philosophy of staying soft in a hardening world (SOFT Review)
Klein’s statement for the album functions as its thesis: “It’s so easy to let the challenges of the world harden you. The hardest thing to do is to fight against it, to stay soft. To protect your softness and the things that you love.” This isn’t generic self-help wisdom. It’s hard-won perspective from someone who literally had his body broken and reconstructed.
The album’s visual identity reinforces this message. The cover image shows Klein cradling a lamb across his chest. Vulnerability made literal, something gentle and innocent that requires protection. When the band announced the album on July 30, 2025, they included a cryptic caption that became a rallying cry for longtime fans: “it’s time to start acting like LANY again.” For a band that spent recent albums experimenting with collaborations and genre variations, this declaration signaled a homecoming.
The complete 10-track listing reveals Klein’s emotional architecture: “Soft” establishing the thesis, “Why” questioning, “Know You Naked” exploring intimacy, “Stuck” examining stasis, “Sound of Rain” offering atmospheric reflection, “Act My Age” navigating tension between maturity and vulnerability, “Good Parts” considering selective memory, “Make Me Forget” seeking escape, “Destiny” pondering fate, and “Last Forever” committing despite fragility. At approximately 33 minutes total, the album maintains LANY’s preference for concise, focused statements over bloated tracklists.
Klein has been remarkably open about his creative philosophy in recent interviews. He defends his choice to continue writing predominantly about love, calling it the coolest thing you could ever do. He never gets sick of exploring it. Every single one of us is born with this desire to be loved and to love. It consumes us. This might sound obvious, but Klein frames it as courageous, a refusal to harden into cynicism or ironic distance.
His views on vulnerability carry particular weight post-accident. He sees himself as an open book, with nothing he’s super ashamed of or embarrassed about. He believes we all have more in common than we realize, so being vulnerable allows us to connect way easier and better than faking it. For Klein, staying soft isn’t passive. It’s active resistance against emotional self-protection. He’s particularly invested in creating space for male vulnerability. He has a soft spot for guys regarding this stuff, having grown up with mostly male friends who never talked about how they were really feeling.
Production polish meets intimate emotion (SOFT Review)
“SOFT” reunites LANY with Tommy King, the producer-keyboardist-programmer who has become essential to their sound. King’s resume includes work with HAIM, The Killers, Vampire Weekend, Maroon 5, and RAYE. Artists who balance indie credibility with pop accessibility, exactly LANY’s sweet spot. King handles piano, synthesizers, and drum programming across the album, working alongside Klein and drummer Jake Goss, the duo that now constitutes LANY’s core following original member Les Priest’s 2022 departure.
The production team represents both continuity and elevation. Pino Palladino on bass brings gravitas. His session work makes him one of music’s most respected low-end specialists. Mark “Spike” Stent mixing the album means Grammy-winning ears fine-tuning every frequency. Randy Merrill at Sterling Sound handled mastering, ensuring the album translates from headphones to arenas. This isn’t bedroom-pop production values. It’s stadium-ready polish serving intimate emotions.
Recording engineer Jon Yeston captured performances, assisted by Eric Ruscinski and Lui Guimaraes, while Dave Emery handled immersive mixing for spatial audio formats. The production philosophy embraces contrast: hardened, professional sonics delivering soft, vulnerable content. Klein’s vocal production maintains his characteristic approach: conversational, almost spoken, emotionally direct rather than technically showy. It’s the anti-talent-show school of singing, prioritizing authenticity over acrobatics.
Nicolle Galyon’s involvement as co-writer on both singles deserves attention. A Nashville songwriter whose credits span country and pop, Galyon brings structural craft to Klein’s emotional rawness. Her presence suggests LANY isn’t afraid to work within professional songwriting traditions while maintaining their identity.
How “SOFT” fits into LANY’s decade-long journey (SOFT Review)
To understand what “SOFT” represents, you need to know where LANY has been. Their 2017 self-titled debut introduced their signature sound: synth-drenched melancholy, diary-entry lyrics, and atmospheric production that felt both massive and intimate. Breakthrough singles like “ILYSB,” which went Platinum, established them as masters of emotionally intelligent pop-rock that didn’t talk down to feelings.
“Malibu Nights” in 2018 became their defining statement. Written in just 40 days, its nine tracks of focused romantic devastation resonated deeply, particularly in the Philippines where LANY achieved unprecedented popularity for a Western indie act. They sold out Araneta Coliseum five consecutive nights in 2019, a remarkable achievement.
“Mama’s Boy” in 2020 and “gg bb xx” in 2021 saw the band experimenting with collaborations and broader sounds. The latter featured Julia Michaels, Lauv, and Kelsea Ballerini, with “I Quit Drinking” and “Mean It” both achieving Gold certification. These albums were commercially successful but represented LANY testing boundaries, sometimes at the expense of the focused intimacy that first connected with fans.
“A Beautiful Blur” in 2023 marked a watershed: LANY’s first album as a duo following Les Priest’s departure, and their first release on independent label Sunset Garden distributed via Virgin Music Group. The 13-track album peaked at number four in Australia and supported over 100 shows worldwide. But it felt transitional, a band figuring out its new identity.
“SOFT” promises to be different. A return to essentials informed by genuine transformation rather than commercial calculation. Where “A Beautiful Blur” asked what LANY sounds like as a duo, “SOFT” asks what LANY sounds like after confronting mortality. The answer seems to be: more like themselves than ever, but with deeper understanding of why that sound matters.
The nostalgia that “Last Forever” evokes isn’t accidental. Klein and Goss have spent a decade refining a specific alchemy of synth-pop melancholy, and rather than abandon it for trends, they’re doubling down on what they do best while letting life experience deepen the emotional stakes.
Reception reveals different listener priorities (SOFT Review)
The singles’ reception exposes different ways people evaluate pop music authenticity. Some listeners hear polish and formula and think the band is stuck in place, content staying exactly where they are. They compare lyrics to familiar territory and wonder if LANY has anything new to offer.
Other listeners, particularly those who’ve followed the band for years, hear something different. They describe the music as raw, bold, and unapologetically honest. They praise the band for returning to their roots while maintaining modern production standards. They hear refinement rather than repetition.
Klein himself has been explicit about his priorities. He’s completely let go of things he cannot control, like someone’s opinion of him, or whether they think the music is worthy of recognition. He doesn’t care about those things anymore.
Smaller publications and independent voices have been notably warm in their reception. Reviews praise how “Last Forever” feels poised, deliberate, and solemn in ways not heard since “Malibu Nights.” Some declare that 2025 is the year we bring back yearning, and there’s no other artist who does it quite like this indie-pop duo.
Fan reaction has been unambiguously positive. Social media responses reveal the emotional labor LANY’s music performs for listeners, providing language and soundtrack for feelings they struggle to articulate. When Klein sings about holding onto love when everything feels fragile, fans hear their own anxieties about commitment, mortality, and staying vulnerable in a cynical world.
This divide matters because “SOFT” will ultimately be judged by two incompatible standards. Some want innovation and risk-taking. Others want LANY to keep doing what LANY does, perhaps better, perhaps deeper, but recognizably themselves. The album seems engineered to satisfy the latter while accepting indifference from the former.
What to expect when “SOFT” arrives October 10 (SOFT Review)
Based on the two singles and the album’s thematic architecture, “SOFT” likely delivers LANY’s most cohesive statement since “Malibu Nights.” Where that album processed a specific breakup, this one processes something more universal: fragility, resilience, and choosing connection despite risk. The 10-track structure suggests intentional sequencing, a narrative arc from the title track’s thesis statement through relationship exploration and concluding with “Last Forever’s” commitment despite uncertainty.
Musically, expect the duo’s signature synth-driven sound elevated by top-tier production. Tommy King’s involvement guarantees lush keyboard textures, while Spike Stent’s mixing ensures every element has space to breathe. The shorter runtime of approximately 33 minutes indicates Klein and Goss’ commitment to no-filler tracklists. Every song earns its place.
Lyrically, Klein will likely continue his practice of rendering interior emotional states in conversational language. He’s been defending this approach, explaining that LANY’s songs are meant to say something, to reflect emotions that people might be experiencing in real-time as they listen. He’s also pushed back against what he sees as performative vulnerability in current pop. He thinks people have misinterpreted vulnerability with chaotic and hyper-specific lyrics that don’t always feel real.
The album’s emotional arc probably mirrors Klein’s recovery journey: acknowledging hardness, exploring what staying soft means in relationships and self-conception, and ultimately arriving at committed vulnerability as a conscious choice. “Last Forever” as the closer suggests resolution, not in the sense of answers, but in the sense of choosing something despite uncertainty.
Promotional strategy has been intriguingly oblique. The Lola Blankets collaboration, a $299 faux fur blanket launched October 3, extends the “soft” concept into lifestyle merchandise. This move toward tangible comfort objects rather than traditional band merchandise suggests LANY understands their music functions as emotional infrastructure for listeners’ lives. The blanket isn’t a cash grab. It’s coherent with the album’s thesis about protecting softness.
Tour plans remain limited, with Lollapalooza India 2026 confirmed as a major booking. LANY recently completed an exhaustive 100-plus show world tour for “A Beautiful Blur,” so the lighter 2025-2026 schedule makes sense. Klein’s recovery also probably necessitates more careful touring pacing. When they do return to stages, expect “Last Forever” to become a live centerpiece, the kind of song that turns arenas into collective emotional experiences.
The stakes of staying soft
“SOFT” arrives at a cultural moment when vulnerability is both commodified and suspicious. Every brand sells authenticity. Every influencer performs relatability. In this context, Klein’s commitment to writing straightforward love songs and processing genuine trauma through pop music could seem naive or calculated depending on your cynicism level.
But here’s what makes “SOFT” potentially significant: Klein genuinely seems to have changed. His recent interviews reveal someone actively working to maintain perspective gained through near-death experience. He’s reading, slowing down, protecting what matters. The album isn’t capitalizing on trauma. It’s processing it in real-time through the only medium Klein knows how to use.
Whether “SOFT” succeeds depends on how you define success. If success means broad acclaim and new audience expansion, the early returns are mixed. If success means deepening connection with existing fans and creating music that helps people feel less alone, the album is probably already successful before the full release. Klein himself has been clear about his priorities. He doesn’t know if music can change the world, but it can make life easier. Maybe they help someone feel even one percent less alone. That, to him, is the point of what they do.
The album also represents LANY’s commitment to independence. As their sixth release and second on Sunset Garden, it demonstrates that the duo can maintain production quality and vision without major label infrastructure. This matters for the industry. More proof that established artists can opt out of traditional structures while preserving creative standards.
Choosing vulnerability as both strategy and survival (SOFT Review)
“SOFT” is LANY’s declaration that they’re done apologizing for who they are. After a decade of synth-pop melancholy, two members becoming a duo, major label departure, and a near-fatal accident, Klein and Goss are betting everything on their core strength: making intimate, emotional music that values feeling over innovation. The album argues that staying vulnerable isn’t weakness. It’s the hardest, bravest choice available.
Whether this message resonates beyond LANY’s existing fanbase remains to be seen. But for listeners who have grown with this band, who’ve soundtracked their own heartbreaks and recoveries with LANY’s previous albums, “SOFT” offers something valuable: proof that vulnerability can survive impact, that softness can coexist with strength, and that choosing connection despite risk is still worth exploring in three-minute pop songs.
When the album drops October 10, listen for what’s changed and what’s remained. The synths will still shimmer. Klein’s voice will still hover between singing and speaking. The emotions will still be right at the surface. But underneath, there’s a new foundation, the knowledge that everything can change in a moment, that bodies break and heal, and that protecting what’s soft in ourselves might be the most important work we do.
LANY has always understood that the personal is universal. “SOFT” is their most personal album yet, which means it might just be their most universal. Klein’s journey from a Los Angeles intersection through ambulances and lawn chairs and Kansas songwriting rooms has led here: ten songs about choosing tenderness when the world demands toughness. For a band that built their career on emotional honesty, this feels like the natural evolution. Not a departure, but a deepening. Not a reinvention, but a return with greater understanding of why they started making this music in the first place.
The title says everything. In a world that rewards hardness, armor, emotional distance, LANY is choosing the opposite. They’re choosing soft. And if Klein’s recovery taught him anything, it’s that softness isn’t fragility. It’s resilience. It’s the thing that survives when everything else breaks.
Listen To “SOFT” By LANY
https://open.spotify.com/prerelease/0PJwOO7eB5AbJu2Ubupghq?si=b072b7d593754e44
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