Copper Lungs Might Be Your Cool Older Sibling’s Favourite Band (And Now Yours Too)
If you're looking for a track that captures the feeling of chasing something just out of reach—Copper Lungs' latest single Brushed in Gold might be it. It’s the kind of song that hits on a second listen, the one you didn’t expect to love but suddenly find stuck in your head for days. There’s a quiet confidence to it, like it knows exactly what it’s doing.
The Dundee-based four-piece—Darren Lindsay, Inaxio Abecia, Liam Thomson, and Brandyn Murphy—have always walked the line between alt-rock and polished indie-pop, and this single leans into both. Think The 1975 but with a bit more edge and a Scottish backbone. It brings early 2000s nostalgia into 2025 without feeling like a throwback act. Guitars shimmer, vocals soar, and there's enough texture in the production to give it real replay value.
Copper Lungs UK Tour - 2025
What makes Brushed in Gold even more interesting is how close it came to never existing. It was the first song Copper Lungs jammed on after reuniting in 2023, and they scrapped it—more than once. It didn’t click at first. But midway through working on their upcoming album Broken Beautiful, something about it kept pulling them back. Instead of forcing it to be something it wasn’t, they let it evolve naturally. A more relaxed, pop-forward version emerged—and suddenly, it worked. In Darren’s words: “We weren’t even taking it seriously at first... but then we got the mix back from Bruce Rintoul and we were like—hold on a minute, this is a banger.”
The track reflects that journey: pushing through doubt, reworking old ideas, and rediscovering what makes something worth holding onto. Lyrically, it’s rooted in Darren’s own conflict—long drives to cover gigs, late nights wondering whether it’s all still worth it. It’s vulnerable, without being dramatic. Relatable, without trying to be.
There’s a certain moodiness to Brushed in Gold that makes it feel like the older, edgier sibling in your music library—the one who hands you a burned CD full of songs you don’t know yet but instantly trust. It's cool without trying too hard, and sincere without losing its bite.
As part of the Broken Beautiful album rollout, Copper Lungs are doing something genuinely creative—a virtual escape room that lets fans preview parts of the record by solving puzzles, guessing lyrics, and unlocking snippets of unreleased songs. It’s immersive, surprisingly tricky at times, and a great way to fall down the rabbit hole of their earlier material. You can try it for yourself at copperlungsbrokenbeautiful.com.
Between the single, the upcoming UK tour (which includes a support slot for Elliot Minor in Edinburgh), and the May 16th album release, Copper Lungs are clearly setting themselves up for a huge year. If Brushed in Gold is any indication, they’re not just back—they’re better than ever.
See them on their UK Tour coming July 2025
