Preston Lydotes – Stranger At Best (2025)
There is something undeniably intimate about Preston Lydotes’ Stranger At Best. The Boston-born troubadour lays his soul bare in this five-song confession booth; each track a page torn from the journal of a young man wrestling with love, ambition, and the quiet chaos of modern life. Lydotes, still just 22 years of age, does more than write songs; he carves out emotional sanctuaries. What we’re left with is a folk-rock collection that feels at once timeless and immediate, deeply personal yet universally resonant.
The title track, ‘Stranger At Best’, sets the tone with aching vulnerability. It’s a melancholic ode to a relationship unravelling, an autopsy of connection, cloaked in acoustic textures and lyricism so candid it leaves a mark. Lydotes’ voice trembles with conviction as he navigates the grey space between love and letting go, his words floating over delicate arrangements like smoke from a late-night fire.
Then comes ‘Wrong’, a heart-tugging acoustic ballad wrapped in self-awareness. With each strum and sigh, Lydotes dissects the fractures of a relationship with the wisdom of someone who’s lived through it and the humility of someone still learning. Engineered by Grammy-winner Ariel Borujow, the track glows with a quiet confidence. There’s a pulse in the production, subtle but unwavering, that carries the song like a heartbeat beneath the pain. You don’t just hear the regret; you feel it.
But Stranger At Best is no monochrome portrait of sadness. With ‘The Critic In Me’, Lydotes turns the lens inward and leans into a driving indie-rock rhythm, sounding like the lovechild of The Backseat Lovers and early-era Coldplay. It’s a celebration of insecurity, a paradox only Lydotes could pull off with such charm. He’s brutally honest, yes, but never hopeless.
That duality comes crashing through on ‘5 to 9’, the EP’s defiant anthem against the grind of capitalism. It’s a fist raised to the sky and a shrug of exhaustion all at once. “Killing myself thinking I’ll survive”, he sings. It’s a track that hits harder than it should, because its truths are ones we all know too well. Closing with ‘The Fallout’, the EP lands softly but with weight. It’s here that Lydotes showcases his greatest strength, empathy. He doesn’t just write about pain; he writes through it. The result is not despair, but catharsis.
Stranger At Best, is a stunning exercise in emotional alchemy. Lydotes turns burnout into poetry, heartbreak into harmony, and confusion into clarity. Each note feels hand-crafted, each lyric a testament to his devotion as a storyteller, arranger, and sonic architect. Preston Lydotes may call himself a stranger, but after this EP, he feels like someone we’ve known forever.
Find out more about Preston Lydotes on his Instagram, TikTok, BandCamp and Spotify.
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