by Caroline Nieto (@caroline.nieto)
Just in time for the slow walk into summer, Free Range is back with a record for the coming months of contemplation. Two years out from their 2023 debut Practice, 21-year-old Sofia Jensen has slipped into a cozy niche on Lost & Found, blending the easy twang of modern folk with the pulsing undercurrent of indie rock. Their profundity comes from keeping it simple—Jensen puts into words the feelings that feel undefinable.
The album’s opening track, “Tilt,” takes root from the direct, “tilt your head towards mine,” a beckoning to move closer, to sink into the atmosphere of the album. The song begins as a piano ballad underscored with a soft snare, and reaches a crescendo as Jensen sings, “you know you’ll leave/and you’ll never wanna go home.”
“Tilt” is only the start of the record’s exploration of growing up—the title track, “Lost & Found,” is a reverie for an adolescence that’s slow to surrender. Anchored by the warmth of Jensen’s voice, the song recalls the emblems of their youth—days passed scribbling on sidewalks and nights spent peering through a telescope. Coupled with the comfort of these scenes is the looming truth that they’re fleeting, a fact that leaves Jensen reaching for guidance they’ve outgrown, singing, “Sometimes I’m scared that I lean on you too much.” The song’s chorus offers something new to lean on, as Jensen’s voice follows each line in an echo, each breath offering the chance to self-sustain.
On “Faith,” maturation is colored with the fear of self-recognition, as related by the lyric, “There’s nothing worse than running from a mirror.” “Faith” moves at a sticky-slow pace, the lyrics wandering through a tempo kept by the band’s signature tranquil percussion. The sound feels congruent to the content, but even the uptempo songs on the album carry a level of vulnerability. “Storm” adopts a brighter pace, kept in motion by a brushed snare and a steel guitar so sunny it nearly distracts from the song’s sensitivity. This track adds to the well of Free Range songs that conquer running away—in this case, Jensen sings, “I keep on lying down/afraid that I’ll be found/I let all my thoughts come with me.” Jensen previously addressed “all my thoughts” in a song of the same name from Practice, where the motif follows, “all my thoughts are leaving in a sense.” It’s a through-line that tracks these albums’ thematic evolution, with the Free Range of 2025 learning to sit with feelings that can't be outrun.
This lyrical introspection afflicts the record’s outlook on communication, where feelings are rendered in spite of their suppression. “Hardly” deals with interpreting a stilted correspondence, where Jensen is left to decipher “broken language you tell me/when all I really wanna know is where you are.” This track exposes a heavier side of the Free Range sound, touting a chugging rhythm guitar to punctuate the lyrics. There’s no better culmination of Jensen’s musical and lyrical strengths than in “Concept,” a track that has essentially perfected the indie rock song. It bottles up the feeling of falling for a person that’s unreachable, a push and pull of holding back and giving in. The song mirrors these oscillating desires, reaching a peak at the song’s chorus, where the lead guitar and vocal line take turns with the melody. The verses pull back, leaving space for Jensen’s lyrics to strike on their own—they manage to render the sensation of “throwing myself out for concept” through imagery as straightforward as “lately I’ve been sitting and hugging my knees.” Each line is elegiac, but even without words, Jensen’s voice reveals every sensation through its timbre alone.
“Concept” breaks down in a post-chorus that reaches a pure catharsis, closing with Jensen’s declaration that “I know you now, but it’s not the same.” The song positions unharmonious relationships with a sense of resolve, but other tracks on Lost & Found are more optimistic in working through incoherence. “Clean” presents a fragile model of countering emotional detachment, beginning with the line, “You talk me through my apathy.” The song is a slow undoing of these built up walls, led by the softness of Jensen’s vocals, as if getting any louder might impede their headway. Similar quietudes are heard in “Service Light,” where Jensen sighs, “I’ll try to slow it down/I’ll let you in.
Perhaps the most hopeful song is “Big Star,” the only song on the album with “characters and a narrative,” as Jensen told Post Trash in May. It’s rife with “pretty silly lyrics,” and follows “[falling] in love for the first time,” ostensibly with Luanne, the target of the song’s affection. “Big Star” is a classically carefree folk-pop song, evoking images of an “East coast afternoon” and “spreading ashes on the dashboard.” There’s a carefree twang in the lead guitar that pairs with Jensen’s harmonica solo after the final chorus. The song praises connection, even one as easy as asking, “please hold my hand.” What follows is the reason for the request—“I’ve gotta hold onto something.” And it's true—we all do.