LEON III

There are bands that write songs, and then there are bands that seem to build entire worlds around them. LEON III sit very comfortably in the latter camp.

Led by Andy Stepanian on vocals, guitar, keys, piano and omnichord, alongside Mason Brent on guitar, bass, vocals and banjo, LEON III, pronounced Leon the Third, emerged from the pair's earlier adventures with cult Virginia outfit Wrinkle Neck Mules. Now they're preparing to release their fourth album, Candy Cigarettes, on 18 September 2026, and if the first two tracks are anything to go by, this is an album designed to be disappeared into rather than simply listened to.

First came Invisible Ink, released on 14 July, followed by Brushstrokes on 4 August. Both sail comfortably beyond the six-minute mark, but neither feels remotely in a hurry. These are tracks given room to breathe, expand and wander, filled with dreamy echoes, sprawling soundscapes, great guitar work and a wonderfully hazy psychedelic atmosphere.

Someone once described LEON III as a "southern Pink Floyd", and you can understand why. There's that same sense of music being constructed as a journey, albums intended for headphones, repeat listens and discovering something you somehow missed the previous time around. But the comparison only gets you so far.

Brent's guitar can be far less restrained, moving from beautifully textured playing into feedback, dissonance and flashes of almost unhinged lead work, while Stepanian's songwriting brings everything back down to earth. His lyrics circle around envy, faith, longing, success, failure and the strange territory somewhere between rising up and crashing back down.

Candy Cigarettes has been a long time coming. The journey began almost four years ago, with the album eventually recorded over a two-year period alongside producer Mark Nevers, who has worked on every LEON III record and whose previous credits include Silver Jews and Bonnie 'Prince' Billy.

Half of the record was captured at Nevers' Beech House Recording in South Carolina, with the remainder recorded at Spacebomb Studios in Richmond, Virginia, assisted by Alex De Jong.

This time, however, there's another ingredient.

Where previous LEON III albums featured a shifting cast of musicians, years on the road have gradually turned their touring line-up into a proper musical unit. Drummer Isaias Gil, bassist Mark Riddell, Jeremy Nuncio on synths and keys, and violinist and backing vocalist Katie Rushing all make substantial contributions to the record. Kai Welch, Justin Paciocco, Paul Niehaus and Mahesh Pathmakumara also appear, alongside string arrangements from Peter Stopchinski.

That familiarity appears to have given LEON III an enormous sonic playground. They can pull everything back until a song almost floats, then gradually pile on layers until the whole thing becomes huge.

And that's perhaps what we've enjoyed most from the two tracks we've heard so far.

There's psychedelia everywhere, but it doesn't feel like psychedelic music for the sake of being psychedelic. Invisible Ink and Brushstrokes have direction. They unfold rather than meander, shifting through dreamy echoes, spacious instrumentation and some genuinely superb guitar.

Six-minute-plus songs can sometimes have you checking how long is left.

These had us wondering where the six minutes went.

With Candy Cigarettes arriving on 18 September, LEON III have very firmly landed on the NottsRocks radar.