Album Spotlight: Lucia & The Best Boys — Burning Castles (2023)

Lucia & The Best Boys — ‘Burning Castles’ album cover. Image credit: Communion Records, Ronan Park

‘Burning Castles’ conveys the conflict inherent in moving on, with the wish that things were different.

They’ve been releasing music since 2017, but Scottish indie rock band Lucia & The Best Boys didn’t put out their debut studio album until 2023. ‘Burning Castles’ is a record about empires crumbling, both the worlds we find ourselves in and the walls we invent in our minds. 

As we approach the end of the Lunar Calendar, and the year of the snake – a year of ‘shedding skins’, now is a great time to get into Lucia & The Best Boys if you’re not already familiar with them, and get lost in a record that does its best to leave things behind as anyone ever can.

In 2024, Lucia & The Best Boys supported The Last Dinner Party at select dates across their UK & Ireland tour. And just in time if you swiftly find yourself a new fan, the band are set to play a sprinkling of shows across the country in May, including a London stop at the Islington Assembly Hall.

So, let’s get into our first album spotlight of 2026, and the themes explored in ‘Burning Castles’.

‘Burning Castles’ Balances Delicacy & Destruction

The balance between delicacy crops up throughout the album from the very first track. Frontwoman Lucia Fairfull embodies this yin-yang, her voice flipping from soft and gentle to a guttural growling belt. ‘Butterflies’ begins just above a whisper, tiptoeing over the most fragile of feelings embodied in the most delicate of creatures. But there’s an anxiety lingering behind her romantic confessions, building steadily across the album’s opener.

As you might call ‘the butterfly effect’, they reach breaking point and come crashing down in the bridge, where Fairfull unleashes the full depth of her voice and passion – nothing delicate about it. You can see the album artwork coming to life as the song reaches its crescendo — a metallic Fairfull standing in front of an inferno with the embers dancing around her face. ‘And I know that I’ll never miss the way I was / Cause I can’t, I was falling apart.’ The album starts, and finishes, with an ending, asking the listener whether she’s the fire, the arsonist, or the castle.

“The balance between delicacy and destruction crops up throughout the album from the very first track. Frontwoman Lucia Fairfull embodies this yin-yang, her voice flipping from soft and gentle to a guttural, growling belt.”

An album standout, eerie, synth-heavy ‘Angels Cry Too’ is a great example of this dance between delicacy and destruction. The verses offer the twinkling melody of an idealised woman, before the chorus gives way to reality. Over heavy chords, Fairfull’s lyrics explore the concept of romanticising a partner, and how far we’ll go to uphold a perfect image of someone; even if it’s at their expense: ‘You call her an angel… / But would you stay here if her wings were tired?’ 

‘Care’ is the heady synth-driven midpoint that brings the album’s central concerns of neglect and decay to light. She compares her lover to tragically bittersweet ‘honeysuckle residue’. Again, Lucia & The Best Boys flip from a gentle verse to a pounding chorus, in a constant tension between fragility and strength.

Lucia & The Best Boys Embrace Conflict & Confusion

So, this is an album about things ending. That’s not to say that it’s a celebration of endings… far from it. ‘Hurt Somebody You Love’ is a slow ballad stripping the confusion bare, while ‘Love Yourself’ pleads for a friend to find hope and self-compassion, with a reference to those once-fluttering butterflies now stuck ‘on the ceiling’. 

Title track ‘Burning Castles’ conveys the conflict inherent in moving on, with the wish that things were different. But Fairfull approaches her next steps with confidence, and this is ultimately the turning point in the album – acknowledging the ‘burning castles’, and deciding to walk away from the flames.

Stating that the album writing began at 22 and finished at 27, Lucia & The Best Boys brilliantly capture the yo-yo-ing emotions of early adult relationships. In ‘So Sweet I Could Die’, the drums collide, offering a perfect contrast for the song’s sickly subject: liking someone so much you sort of want to destroy them. The songs begins ‘I’m grateful that you aren’t mine’... before becoming ‘Baby, never stop / Givin’ me your love’ — presenting an intoxicatingly toxic dynamic which ends, as it always does, with resentment: ‘You’re so sweet you should die.’

Likewise, lead single ‘When You Dress Up’ takes a few listens to wrap your head around. Is the song directed at Fairfull’s lover, enemy, or both? What starts softly, almost flirtatiously, warps into twisted, heavy rock, with reverbed guitars and screeching vocals turning the lyrics into a snarling rage… and it’s still hard to tell whether she’s seeking revenge or reconciliation. 

“Life is messy, but Lucia & The Best Boys are able to round up the chaos enough to pour it into an album that feels as liberating as it does crushing – like any huge change. If you’re in the middle of a transition, a collapse, or pure chaos, let ‘Burning Castles’ be a strangely soothing balm.”

‘Burning Castles’ Celebrates The Chaos of Collapse

All this confusion is concluded in the final tracks. ‘You’re My Favourite Thing To Lose’, acknowledges love that becomes so all-consuming it threatens to swallow us whole; ‘Wish I could drown in the love that we found’. Fairfull can clarify for herself the ‘vicious circle’ of a dynamic that’s ‘oil and water’. Compared to the relatively mild tempo of the rest of the album, there’s an optimism that runs through the pulsing beat of the last song. 

And in admitting what she’s losing, a small success is won. Reiterated in ‘Haunt You Back’ Fairfull takes ownership of the situation, positioning herself in greater control than the beginning of the album, by choosing to let go: ‘I know I’ll be better when you’re not around’.

Life is messy, but Lucia & The Best Boys are able to round up the chaos enough to pour it into an album that feels as liberating as it does crushing – like any huge change.

If you’re in the middle of a transition, a collapse, or pure chaos, let ‘Burning Castles’ be a strangely soothing balm.