There is a certain appeal about an album that doesn’t seem overly concerned with behaving itself, and Love & Death, the latest record from The Free States, is certainly not short on musical curiosity. Shaun Lyons has created a record that moves between rock, soul, alternative songwriting and more experimental territory, occasionally throwing an unusual rhythm or unexpected arrangement into the mix just to see what happens, and remarkably, it all makes considerably more sense than it probably ought to.

Love & Death is the third Free States album in three years. If anything, this feels like a songwriter becoming increasingly comfortable with following an idea wherever it happens to lead, rather than worrying too much about whether it arrives where he originally had in mind.

That is certainly true of the music, where Lyons seems to have given himself permission to move beyond the more guitar driven sound of 2025’s self titled The Free States. The guitars are still very much part of the picture, but they now share the space with strings, more adventurous percussion and unexpected time signatures as well as rhythmic ideas that occasionally seem to have wandered in from another musical universe. These contrasts give it its personality.

Opening track “Most of All” was written at three in the morning with an electric guitar and an amplifier still sitting nearby, and it has the feeling of something that emerged naturally and not something assembled according to a songwriting blueprint. Vitaliy Fesenko’s strings bring another dimension too, while retaining some of the slightly vulnerable quality of its origins.

Fesenko, a musician from Odesa and, by Lyons’s description, the kind of musician around whom communities are built, brings exactly the sort of contribution that makes collaboration worthwhile.

“Definite”, which was written in the odd time signature of 7/4, is a particularly good example of Lyons using musical structure to reinforce an idea. The song is about being caught at a decisive point in a relationship, and that slightly unsettled rhythm gives the whole thing a sense of uncertainty, as though the music itself isn’t quite sure which foot it is supposed to put forward. Vlad Lomadze’s drumming gives a restless pulse beneath the melody here.

Perhaps the most intriguing thing about Love & Death is the way Lyons allows his ideas to change during the writing process. “Man the Baddies” began life as a pro-war song, then became an anti-war song and eventually developed into something more personal, dealing with mortality and the question of what is actually worth doing with the limited time we have. This reflects the wider philosophy of the album, where uncertainty is not treated as a problem that needs to be solved but is part of the creative process itself.

“The Eyes Are All You Know” plays a similar trick, initially presenting itself as a song about infidelity before opening up into something that touches on decisions, alternative possibilities and the nagging doubt that whatever path we choose we will eventually wonder about the one we didn’t take.

There are moments when the record becomes heavier, particularly given that this is the quieter of the two most recent Free States albums, while elsewhere the arrangements are more delicate. There is also a subtle rhythmic influence that suggests Indian musical traditions. The clever thing is that none of these elements seem to have been added simply to make the album appear adventurous. They generally feel as though they belong to the songs.

It is also an album that makes a strong case for listening to the record as a whole rather than treating it as a collection of individual tracks. At around thirty to forty minutes, Love & Death is compact enough to absorb in one sitting, but there is enough variation in mood, rhythm and arrangement to make the journey interesting from beginning to end.

Love & Death is certainly an album with plenty of ideas. It has enough warmth and eccentricity to keep things interesting, which makes it a particularly enjoyable record to spend time with. There is considerable pleasure in discovering an album that wants to let you figure it out for yourself.

About The Free States

The Free States is the musical project of American songwriter Shaun Lyons, now based in Athens, Greece. Lyons began playing guitar at fifteen and quickly developed a fascination with recording, finding himself more drawn to building songs piece by piece than to the pressures of performing live.

After growing up around Gainesville, Florida, he stepped away from live music, joined the Peace Corps and moved to Ukraine, continuing to make music without performing. He later survived stage four cancer before eventually returning to the stage with a renewed desire to perform.

Three albums followed in three years: The Law of Entropy (2024), The Free States (2025) and Love & Death (2026). Each album explores a different side of his songwriting.

Lyons makes much of the music independently on a MacBook, without AI, working with trusted collaborators where needed. He views the album as the fundamental unit of musical work, deliberately keeping each record around thirty to forty minutes and treating the process much like writing a book: personal, self-directed and given the space to develop on its own terms.

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