Marking their grand return, The Lazy Eyes today announce their second album due August 21 via AWAL. With the news comes their first single in four years, ‘The One Who Got Away’ out now. Marking the occasion is a set of free single launches in Sydney and Melbourne in late April. LISTEN HERE + WATCH HERE + PRE-SAVE LP HERE.

Woozy and heartfelt, ‘The One Who Got Away’ is a pseudo-sequel to their song ‘Imaginary Girl’. Written around the time of their end of high school exams, the track would take on new life in a series of experimental production approaches – “this poor song got put through the wringer” reveals Harvey Geraghty. Aching with a sense of longing and disbelief, the track is a reflection of the years-long process the band undertook to break apart their band and mould their next phase; from teens creating serendipitously to determined young men.

WATCH: ‘The One Who Got Away’ (Official Video)

Of the moment, the band share “This song captures a feeling of regret or longing for a type of love that you know can’t exist in your reality. It’s a little bit about the human desire of always wanting what you can’t have and thinking how perfect things could have been instead of being present and just enjoying your life. It’s about holding on to fantasy and in that way it has a dreamy and sad quality to it. It’s definitely not your run of the mill ‘we’re happy together I love you’ type of song. It’s not exactly about heartbreak either, it’s about a love that never was.”

The Lazy Eyes— dual singer/guitarists Itay Shachar and Harvey Geraghty, drummer Noah Martin and bass player Leon Karagic—started their career with a bang, playing shows across the world, receiving high rotation on triple j and BBC Radio 6 Music, and garnering support from Matt Wilkinson, Elton John and KCRW, among others. After forming in high school and gigging around Sydney for the better part of their teenage years, they broke through with two EPs released in 2020 and 2021 that tapped into the sound of idols like King Gizzard and Tame Impala.

The high school prodigies whose emergence on the scene would spread like wildfire, combined those influences with a love of pop songwriting and a knack for studio wizardry on their debut album SongBook. Released in 2022 and amassing millions of streams, in the time since the band have supported Wet Leg, Djo, The Strokes, performed at Laneway Festival, SXSW, All Points East, triple j’s Like A Version, Splendour in The Grass and toured across Australia, New Zealand, the US, Mexico, UK and Europe – all before the age of 25.

The forthcoming Cheesy Love Songs proves The Lazy Eyes are naturals when it comes to writing songs that feel unaffected and resonant. Many of its songs capture complex feelings in a way that feels simple and real through a set of tracks that, Harvey says, “explore our softer, love song side.” Named in homage to ‘Cheesy Love Song’, the first track they put out, the album feels like a love letter to the classic pop form: a collection of rose-tinted missives that deal in swelling choruses and yearning, bittersweet lyrics, which takes its queues from ‘60s icons like The Kinks and The Beatles as much as it does contemporary heartbreakers like The Strokes.

Making Cheesy Love Songs represented a necessary struggle: Time to go back-to-basics, work out who The Lazy Eyes are in 2026, and return stronger than before. A music box – the first thing you hear on the album – by its nature, isn’t easy to maintain; it requires care and attention. A deceptively simple invention, a couple of twists and it effortlessly lets out a beautiful, delicate melody. Of course, beneath the porcelain façade, it’s hardly effortless; it requires dozens of precisely machined parts, working in perfect harmony. If one part falters or rusts, the music stops. But with the right parts in place, its beauty is something to behold. All The Lazy Eyes’ growth might be contained in that idea: That not knowing isn’t a weakness, but a strength; that sometimes not having all the answers can result in your best work to date.