What Happens After (2020 Laveda album) – Queen City Sounds and Art

Laveda formed as a dream pop band in Albany, New York in 2018. The core duo of Ali Genevich and Jake Brooks released two outstanding albums of deeply introspective, atmospheric and tender records with 2020’s What Happens After and 2023’s A Place You Grew Up In. As though the title of the latter was a prompt to evolve creatively Laveda relocated to New York City the same year and whether it was already happening then or more came together once in the big city the band evolved in a decidedly different sonic direction without losing its instincts for crafting memorable melodies and vivid, emotionally vibrant and immediately relatable lyrics. 2025’s Love, Darla marked a change in style for a more gritty, more angular, almost No Wave sound as though Genevich and Brooks had delved further into the Sonic Youth catalog and found their way to the likes of Live Skull and, perhaps unrelated, The Cleaners From Venus. The new album sounds like the work of people who made the move to pursue their art further and didn’t come out the other side jaded. Instead transformed and challenged to do something to reflect their own development as people and artists.

Listen to our interview with Genevich and Brooks on Bandcamp and follow Laveda at the links below.

Laveda on Instagram

Laveda on Facebook

Laveda LinkTr.ee

The snow falling in the video for Laveda’s single “F***” seems timed perfectly for the recent cold wave that has swept through North America around the beginning of 2023. The rhythm guitar paired with Ali Genevich’s emotionally rich vocals at the beginning of the song are somehow both spare and lush as the sound evolves into wider-ranging sonics. Guitar texture turns to crunchy distorted atmospherics and shining keyboard work threads through the haze like the sun through a fading snowstorm. The lyrics about heartbreak, betrayal and coming into owning your anger after feeling like you had to keep it under wraps because it’s what’s expected of you are so raw but expressed in a way that is uplifting and liberating gives the song a depth of meaning that has been typical for the band’s songwriting up to now and in particular for A Place You Grew Up In (due Spring 2023 on Papercup Music), the follow up album to 2020’s What Happens After. Watch the video for “F***” on YouTube and follow Laveda at the links provied.