HAARA’s Debut Album 'LAMBS' Fuses Psychedelia, Tradition, and Human Fragility

Swiss psyche-folk collective HAARA arrives with a debut that refuses to sit still. Their first full-length album, LAMBS (via Rattler Records), is less a record and more a living, breathing soundscape, one that blends global traditions, raw rock energy, and psychedelic textures into something as timeless as it is forward-looking.

The album takes its name from the title track, “Lambs,” a song that encapsulates the project’s ethos: wild yet empathetic, rooted in tradition yet hungry for new ground. It’s a meditation on roots, brotherhood, and resilience in the face of change, themes that thread themselves throughout the record.

Across eleven tracks, LAMBS showcases HAARA’s refusal to play by the rules. Expect lush ensembles of guitars, acoustic, classical, and electric, layered into hypnotic textures rather than carved into solos. The rhythm section draws on grooves outside the Western canon, weaving in the grit of rock, the roundness of samba, and the pulse of cumbia.

But what truly sets the record apart is its fearless instrumentation: koto, fula, oud, hang, fujara, and even carnyx appear alongside familiar instruments bent into experimental new forms. Vocals inspired by global song traditions float above it all, creating an atmosphere that feels equally intimate and expansive. At its core, LAMBS is a record about connection, and the ways we lose it. It reflects on human conflict, fragile relationships with nature, and the bonds we form only to see them tested by change. These aren’t abstract meditations; they’re lived-in stories, refracted through sound.

The album artwork is as striking as the music it frames. On the front: a lamb fatally caught on a wire fence in its attempt to escape, distorted and obscured like a broken transmission. On the back: the unfiltered photo, revealing both nature’s raw beauty and the tragedy of sacrifice. Shot on a farm in Yverdon-les-Bains, Switzerland, the image doubles as a metaphor for accidental yet transformative acts, the sacrifices made in the pursuit of freedom.

At just over forty minutes, LAMBS is not a strict concept album, but each track feels like a chapter in a loose narrative. It’s a record meant for discovery, with textures that reward careful listening yet remain accessible to newcomers. HAARA themselves recommend playing it at sunset, when light fades and the day turns to introspection.

With LAMBS, HAARA plant their flag as one of the most ambitious new voices in global psychedelic folk. It’s a record that challenges, transports, and lingers long after the last note fades.