From Lyon’s vibrant indie underground emerges Luje with their full-length Among The Firs, a record where pop sensibility meets the dream-rock swirl of shoegaze and the expansive colors of psychedelic rock. Following their three-track release Yeah (October 22, 2025), this album confirms a band stepping confidently into their own sonic terrain.
Formed by Kévin Lafort, Valentin Thévenin, Joaquim Hattermann, Félix Anessi, and Théo Das Neves, Luje recorded Among The Firs between the remote warmth of La Maison des Sapins and Sample & Hold Studio, with Das Neves behind the board. Mastered by Sacha Besson at Tubecult and distributed via Howlin’ Banana & Confiture Distribution, the album carries the texture of analog space—a kind of forest chamber where reverb and melody grow wild.
Each of the album’s songs feels planted in memory and atmosphere: guitars shimmer like light filtering through needles of fir, vocals drift into dusk, drums pulse with both stillness and motion. The production leans rich yet unforced—there’s space between notes, air around chords, and a sense of listening beneath layers rather than being crushed by them.
Luje’s songwriting reflects contrast and connection. Pop hooks float atop psychedelic expanses, while shoegaze haze diffuses edges and invites introspection. Themes of nature, escape, and internal landscapes thread through the album— the fir-trees become metaphor and backdrop, a parallel to the band’s own sonic growth: rooted yet reaching upward.
What makes Among The Firs stand out in the French indie-rock field is its balance: accessible without compromise, dreamy without detachment. Luje don’t hide their influences—the swirl of My Bloody Valentine’s feedback, the melodic ease of early Ride, the expansive ambition of Tame Impala—but they bury homage inside identity, crafting something uniquely theirs.
In a world of instantaneous sound, Among The Firs asks you to slow time: to close your eyes, lose your bearings, feel the rise and fall of guitars like wind in branches, let the echo become part of your own breathing. This is an album you don’t just hear—you inhabit.
Lush, reflective, and resonant, “Among The Firs” is the forest-echo of shoegaze’s new bloom.
