Lukas Frank's Storefront Church project spent recent months retreading familiar ground with covers of Sisters of Mercy and Leonard Cohen. Now he's broken that pattern with "Still Lying," his first new original since last year's overlooked *Ink & Oil*.
That earlier album deserves resurrection. Anyone mourning the absence of Grizzly Bear's layered arrangements or Radiohead's angular precision should tunnel back into *Ink & Oil*'s catalog. Frank constructs something dense and textured, the kind of indie rock that rewards repeated listening rather than demanding immediate gratification.
"Still Lying" marks a return to self-written material after a period of covers that felt more like palate cleansing than artistic statement. The track arrives without fanfare, which tracks with how *Ink & Oil* itself largely escaped notice despite its craft. Frank's operating in that unglamorous space where serious musicians often find themselves: making genuinely interesting work that the streaming algorithm and music discourse both seem content to ignore.
Whether this signals a return to original songwriting or another detour remains unclear. But the fact that Frank is releasing new material under his own pen again suggests the cover period was exactly what it looked like: a necessary interlude, not a permanent pivot.