Brendan Lake – Atlantis
Sometimes you just gotta strike out on your own… Just ask Brendan Lake. The 29-year-old Rochester lifer has spent plenty of time playing surf rock with his two brothers in acclaimed surf rock act Televisionaries. His new album, Atlantis, is the burgeoning singer/songwriter/Renaissance man writing, recording, producing, mixing, and mastering an album from start to finish, all by his lonesome. The result is a ten-song indie-pop LP called Atlantis, a “semi-concept” album about addiction, recovery, and sobriety; love and loss; and what it means to get older. You had us at indie-pop… The soul-crushing themes are just a bonus. For those reasons (and at least a few more), Atlantis is our Album of the Week.
The album opens with “Fly,” an archetypal Lake song, and one of the strongest songs on the album. Immediately, the familiar sting of stabby, DI acoustic guitar makes its way through your preferred listening device. Wiggly guitar lines zig and zag their way across the song while Lake sings wistfully over light-hearted indie rock. There’s a distinct DIY flair to Atlantis, and that homemade, bedroom-pop aura is part of Lake’s charm as a solo act. The lyrics here dig deep, almost surprisingly so: “Wide open spaces, we were running through the ages, did I ever really stop to soak it in? / spun through the cycles, I’ve been chewed up and recycled, everything that is must come to pass / I’ve been keeping all my feelings locked inside.” Lake knows how to spit a verse or two. For similar, squirmy, electric-guitar-led vibes, visit “West Bound” later on through the LP.
Title-track “Atlantis” starts with a plucky acoustic riff – a love song through and through, or maybe Lake manifesting his utopia, it’s a nice juxtaposition against the more ebullient vibe of “Fly.” “I’m gonna find my Atlantis,” Lake sings over a mid-tempo groove… Which, to tangent, brought me right back to the summer of 2014, arguably the best time of my entire life, and the centerpiece of it all – an apartment on Atlantic Avenue that my roommates and I affectionately nicknamed (what else?) “Atlantis.” It’s these weird little intricacies and specificities that Lake weaves into his music so well that take his songwriting to the next level… And while this one is hyper specific to me, it does still feel a little bit like kismet. If you like the style on “Atlantis,” you should check out “Send Me Away,” too.
Make no mistake, Atlantis slaps like an album made in 2026… Maybe even 2016. Slot this one into rotation next to your favorite Mac Demarco or Kurt Vile record and you won’t miss a beat. But, despite the dark themes, there’s a more wholesome undercurrent here. There’s a ’60s element here, particularly a Brian Wilson/Mike Love/Beach Boys vibe, which becomes all the more tangible with the themes of addiction and recovery. Songs like “Sweet Addiction” have an uplifting sound to carry hard and heavy motifs. It’s tough to imagine Mike Love ever delivering a song about sneaking out the door to buy drugs – but Lake’s pleasant tenor isn’t too far off from Love’s. Same goes for “Wrapped Around Your Finger,” which even plays around with hot-rod themes (and honestly dude, it is hard to compete with someone who has a Lambo), and “There’s a World” which deals with not wanting to face the world. The BB parallels are there and we’re here for it.
Atlantis comes out the same way it goes in – breezy and light on the ears with closing track “Out In The Country” where Lake exclaims that “good things are coming my way.” I hope so bud. Atlantis is out now (September 11, 2026) – check out the bandcamp embed (below), or, find it on Spotify or Apple Music.
Categorised in: Album of the Week
This post was written by Nick Sessanna