Lucky Now by Lande Hekt

Lande Hekt is a punk rocker out of the UK. Her debut album was ‘Gigantic Disappointment’ in 2019. Before that, she was the vocalist for a band called the Muncie Girls, with which she released two albums. She was seventeen when she helped form that band, and she’s thirty-two now, so she’s travelled the miles, or kilometers, if you’d like.

Her first two albums were largely experimental, where she was finding her groove. In all of her work there’s a symmetry and pleasantness that you can hit play and just get lost in it all. It flows really well. Each album is a project in sitting you down and helping you lose yourself - something that I think is reflective of the young woman’s project in life, here - to tune out the rest of the world and live in the moment. My sense is that her first album was her finding her footing, and her second album was her getting a toehold and digging in some - what a bureaucrat would call ‘getting organized.’ Her third album was bolder and bigger than the second, where she was letting it all hang out. She was confronting something, you can tell.

Among her greatest influences are The Wedding Present, The Sundays, and the Replacements. There’s a rawness and a nakedness to this album that really reflects this artist at her core. This is that misunderstood girl in school - that one who maybe kept to herself but when you got to know her she was a well of creativity, intelligent, and insight into life. At such a young age.

It’s very punk rock to lean into what makes you ‘different’ and special. Instead of denying yourself and rejecting yourself, you say fuck you to the bully and become more yoursrelf. That’s what punk rock was built on and this girl is carrying on that tradition.

There’s a certain sound that she swims in. There’s a vibe that she tends to groove to. It’s active, it’s alive, it’s optimistic despite the scars of the past, and it’s persistent. There’s a willingness to dream and to imagine and to work hard and refine one’s work - painstakingly at times - and to live to see what’s on the other side of that.

She writes, produces and performs everything herself. She reminds me of the Polish musician Hania Rani, a contemporary of Hekt’s - her music is authentically her. As much as she’s accomplished and as distinguished as she is, she is still reinforcing that steel that makes her unique - that special material that is consistent in all her work. And, I think that when she makes that turn, around the bend, where she meets the right producer and perhaps a few other collaborators, is when we will see her music go to the next level and see greater success. That is, if Lande wants that. She might be perfectly content with what she’s doing right now, and if that’s the case her music will still rock.

Best Songs:

Kitchen II

Rabbits

*Favorite Pair of Shoes - the single of the album

Middle of the Night

The Sky

Submarine

Lucky Now was released on January 30, 2026 by Tapete Records.