Album Review - Hoist the Colors "Dear Wanderlust"

There’s something almost feral in Dear Wanderlust. It isn’t pretty; it’s weathered. It’s the sound of restless feet dragging through city streets at dawn, scraping against concrete and carrying old bones. Hoist the Colors have always flirted with contradiction, punk’s urgency, folk’s roots, Celtic strings in smogged alleys, but this record tilts that collision toward something deeper, darker, more alive.

From the first crack of string and snare, you’re aware that Dear Wanderlust is not just another folk-punk album. Produced by Paul Miner (Buzzbomb Studios) and released via HEY!FEVER Records, the album leans heavily into contrast, the sweet ache of bluegrass, the rough snap of punk chords, and the space between.

The lead single “Documentation” sets the tone, guitar riffs that bite, a mandolin flickering in the mix, vocals that hover between confession and battle cry. The lyrical weight is there: triumph tangled with failure, hope from pain.

One of Dear Wanderlust’s greatest feats is how naturally the influences blend. It never feels forced, bluegrass, Americana, Celtic, SoCal punk: they’re not pasted together, they breathe.

On tracks where fiddle, banjo, or mandolin show up, they don’t just adorn the sound, they push it, carve its shape, sometimes even take over. The punk backbone remains, but now it has sinew, muscle, and scars.

Josh Linden and the band lean fully into vulnerability. These are songs of motion, moving toward something, away from something else, chasing meaning in the blur.

The record is full of landscapes, dusty highways, brackish ports, night-lit streets, empty rooms. The video for “The Sins of Saints” is theatrically ambitious (with wrestlers, allegory, redemption) and taps into the grandness hidden in their songwriting.

Meanwhile “Documentation” uses the Port of Los Angeles as a metaphorical stage: a gritty locus of motion, trade, flux, the meeting of sea and city.

Because the record stretches between extremes, thunderous and introspective, sometimes the transitions feel abrupt. A track might soar, then collapse, then scramble. For some listeners, that rollercoaster is exhilarating; others might want more gradual build or space to breathe.

In pushing boundaries, a few moments tip into overambition. A melody might stretch too far, a vocal line might try to carry more weight than it fully sustains. But these are small quibbles in a record whose heart is intact.

For longtime fans, Dear Wanderlust doesn’t abandon what made Hoist the Colors resonant, that blend of city grit and acoustic limbs. The danger is that it sometimes leans into expected tropes (wandering, exile, longing). But the freshness comes from how they feel those tropes now, rather than how they refer to them.

Dear Wanderlust is a rugged, wild-spirited album with cracks that let the light in. It doesn’t promise comfort, but it promises truth. Hoist the Colors have sharpened their voice: not louder, but more distinct, more present. For fans of folk-punk, Celtic fusion, or any music that wants to hurt you beautifully, this one is essential.

Grade (in orgore grading spirit): B+ to A−.