Out of the bedroom and into the daylight, sleep well.’s sophomore LP It’s Getting Brighter marks their first album in four years. When the San Antonio-grown fivepiece arrived back in 2019, indie-rock forward Pictures of Dogs charmed audiences with sugarcoated dream-pop and salad days appeal. Whereas their debut was written in just a few days, barrel-aged It’s Getting Brighter culminates years of growth, mixing rose-tinted nostalgia for youth gone past. Brimming with simmered folk ballads and aching twentysomething confessionals, the album points a new direction for the now-Austin-based band, whose tastes have evolved since we last met at the crossroads. Singer-songwriter Quiet Light, wrapping a breakout 2023, guests on alt.country-infused gut punch “I Took My Life and Divided It to My Own Liking,” while the gentle percussion of “Heavy Lifting” makes early-adulthood existentialism sound disarmingly sublime. “Settle in, but don’t you dare figure me out,” lead vocalist Andrés Garcia croons on the record’s jazz-steeped title track, like waking up from a dream to a brilliant sunrise. It’s getting brighter indeed.

sleep well.

It’s Getting Brighter

This article appears in January 19 • 2024.

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