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May 08, 2025 By Caleb Campbell

Philadelphia-based brother-sister musicians Sam and Louise Sullivan are longtime students of pop songwriting, crafting bright and organic folk pop confections steeped in classic influences like Fleetwood Mac, Motown, and Paul McCartney. A host of vintage pop aficionado outfits have cropped up in recent years, operating in a similarly ebullient vein, but Sam and Louise are quick to note they’re not a nostalgia act. “We never want to affect a persona as an aesthetic,” Sam says. “We want to make what we love new again.”

The pair debuted together with their 2021 self-titled EP, followed by their 2023 full-length album, Papier Mâché, and returned last year with a string of new singles. The pair have a new album due out later this summer, Sweet Enough, and today they’re sharing the record’s lead single, “Avalon.”

“Avalon” is a shining example of doing a lot with a little. Sam and Louise take just a few simple rhythms, jangly guitars, and sweeping pop harmonies and blend them together into a blissful sun-soaked confection. A breezy drum machine rhythm kicks off the track, with the chiming chords and charming vocal melodies following soon after. Sam and Louise’s vocals lilt and dance through the track, offering a display of swooning melodicism as they sing longingly of escaping the doldrums of everyday life: “Life in a dry town has been getting you down, now / They got you working on the weekend / They got you working all the time / You drive to Avalon / Same song a thousand times / You try to put it all behind and / I’ll try too.” Sam and Louise understand intuitively the freedom found in losing yourself in a feather-light pop song, and with “Avalon” they’ve cobbled together their own joyously sunny oasis.

Check out the song below, out everywhere now. Sweet Enough is due out later this year via Historic New Jersey Recordings.