Nihilism Has No Home on Lunar Vacation’s Everything Matters, Everything’s Fire
With new confidence, the Georgia group elevate their lo-fi lilt and chase the meaning in everything on their sophomore LP.

No city is perfect, but Decatur comes pretty close. Located inside the perimeter of Atlanta but operating as its own city, Decatur is a hyper-progressive yet family-focused historic town where residents sling the catchphrase “Decatur, where it’s greater.” Another local mantra is “Keep it in-Decatur” (pronounced like indie-catur). The twon prides itself on being different, but better. The five twentysomethings who make up the band Lunar Vacation call this place home, and it’s no coincidence that their new album Everything Matters, Everything’s Fire feels a bit like Decatur: as communal as it is distinctive.
Their debut album Inside Every Fig is a Dead Wasp was released in 2021, and it’s a perfectly tasteful indie rock album—but it sounded like the members were tiptoeing into their careers, their identity as a group still a bit uncertain. Their music has ranged from punchy green indie pop (see: the Artificial Flavors EP from 2018) to the surfy rock on Inside Every Fig. On Everything Matters, however, they slide closer to the shoegaze side of the indie pop spectrum and kick their art into high gear with inventive soundscapes and consistently snappy lyrics.
Once a cluster of Atlanta high schoolers who were unsure whether this thing had legs, Lunar Vacations’ members are now all in: They live in one big house together in Decatur, Brockhampton-style, and their newfound familial lifestyle has luckily spilled into their sound. Everything about the album points to abundance—more friends, more groceries, more confidence, more life. In a time where many pop artists are content to quite literally scream nihilism from the rooftops (“Nothing Matters,” after all), it’s a nice change of pace to hear songs that embrace the meaning in everything, even the stuff that sucks.