3 New Albums That Revive Sounds of the '70s

What was old is new again. The internet allows us to easily look back at any time period and there’s likely someone else out there already talking about it nostalgically. Music streaming allows people to cue up classics from any time period with ease, meaning they never really go away. At the same time, vinyl record sales remain high as people value that physical media experience. And it seems like bell bottoms are as fashionable as ever. This eye toward the past stuck with me as I listened to three of my most anticipated albums recently, all of which seem to dig into sounds of the ‘70s (and some ‘60s and ‘80s, too).

Beck - Ride Lonesome (CD | Digital)

Beck’s newest album, his 15th, fits comfortably into a tradition of beautifully melancholy records he’s released throughout his career. His first in this style, Sea Change (2002), was a break-up album featuring lush echoing vocals, string arrangements by his composer father, and immaculate production by Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich. Beck returned to this style in 2014 with Morning Phase, which won him three Grammys including album of the year.

He’s spent the years in between recording some of the flashiest pop tunes of his career. But 12 years later, Beck returns with Ride Lonesome after a divorce. He has brought with him the same musicians, producer and his father arranging strings as those previous albums for a moving and introspective chapter in this trilogy.

You could easily make the argument this is Beck’s ode to Laurel Canyon in the 1970s. It shares the same unhurried, folk song richness of that scene, marrying heartfelt lyrics and deceptively immaculate production. Songs like the title track and “Slow Canyon” contain enough pedal steel and slide guitar twang to sound like they could be Gram Parsons covers. The harmonies on “Disappearing Act” bring to mind Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young as he laments “Ride the darkness somewhere new / Try to unlearn the things you knew / There's a road out of here leads to nowhere.”

The Sea Change and Morning Phase albums have long been favorites of his fans in times of loss and heartbreak. They are a reminder you’re not alone in your times of grief.

When I saw Beck in KC in early October he told the audience, “This album had sat finished on my hard drive for quite a while, so it feels strange to finally be on the road playing it for you.” I imagine it took time to feel comfortable releasing such vulnerable songs publicly. But he also kept rocking the house all night with old hits like “Loser” and “Where It’s At.” Beck also told us about how he actually spent his childhood summers in Overland Park with his minister grandparents. He recounted how normal the baseball with neighborhood kids and public pool felt here compared to his latchkey, boho life in east LA the rest of the year.

The Lemon Twigs - Look for Your Mind! (CD)

The Lemon Twigs are brothers Brian and Michael D'Addario who were only 19 and 17 when they released their first album. Children of a musician and actress, the brothers had acted in Law & Order, CSI and Sinister before releasing their first album Do Hollywood. They started learning guitar and drums in their single-digit years. Despite their young age, they’ve sounded like they walked right out of the ‘60s and ‘70s since their very beginning.

The brothers performed on Broadway as kids and that show tune influence led them to record their own musical as their second album. But far from an imitation or novelty act the band has garnered fans like Elton John and Todd Rundgren proving their songwriting is sincere and the real deal.

Look for Your Mind! affirms the Twigs to be incredibly consistent songwriters and performers who play jangly pop-rock songs that sound both retro and timeless. Most songs clock in at three-and-a-half minutes or less, just like the classic rock and British Invasion bands who influenced them. The title track sounds like a cautionary tale for modern times written by John Lennon. You could mistake Brian’s vocals for McCartney’s croon and yowl on “Yeah I Do.”

No influence is bigger on this album than The Beach Boys, likely reappraised after Brian Wilson’s passing in 2025. “Gather Round” has the theatrical pomp of Pet Sounds and “Mean to Me” features the D’Addario brothers’ harmonies that beautifully weave through each other at the end in that unique way only the Wilson brothers seemed capable. “Bring You Down” is the closest the band has gotten to outright surf rock while singing a message about ‘the man’ using surveillance tech to, well, bring you down. This albumis an incredibly catchy and fun bunch of songs that you’ll have stuck in your head by your second spin.

Boards of Canada - Inferno (CD)

Speaking of brothers, Boards of Canada is Scottish siblings Mike Sandison and Marcus Eoin who have been releasing evocative and atmospheric electronic music since 1998. Their often-imitated but never-bested style alternates between warm, ethereal melodies that evoke their ‘70s childhood, and unsettling undertones and warbly vocal samples that suggest a tape that got mangled or reversed. They use synthesizers from the '70s and '80s and actual tape to achieve these lo-fi sound collage effects. 

BOC’s last album, Tomorrow’s Harvest, sounded like a score for an old dystopian sci-fi movie, which I found perfect to soundtrack spooky reading. Thirteen years later, the notoriously private brothers are back with their lengthiest cinematic album that sounds more like a horror film than sci-fi.

Inferno is the duo’s fifth album and the first to musically allude to all their previous albums, in both melodic phrasing and themes. It retains the moments of blissful highs and uneasy lows as before, but with higher fidelity especially in the bass rhythms that verge on hip-hop influenced at times. It also uses the most vocal samples of their career from interviews with cults, supernatural documentaries, and educational films on birth. It can feel a bit like an old episode of Unsolved Mysteries at times. The effect makes this album sound more movie-like but also topical on the idea Inferno and religious extremism.

On the one hand, this album removes some of the ambiguity of their previous work that ran more on subliminal vibes than overt statements. On the other, the songwriting is strong as ever, memorable after they’re over and unlike any out there. Inferno is best experienced start-to-finish, letting their carefully crafted soundscape wash over you. While a bit polarizing, it will no doubt make you feel something. Childhood nostalgia, tension and unease, but resolves with moments of uplift like its penultimate track, my favorite “You Retreat in Time and Space.”