“Golden Wolf shares a new insight into DOPE LEMON’s life and universe, and we’re really proud of this one,” Angus Stone tells Apple Music. The vocalist and multi-instrumentalist founded DOPE LEMON in 2016 as a solo venture away from his brother-sister indie-pop duo, Angus & Julia Stone. “For us, each album is like peering through a window into a house with different rooms filled with magical ornaments and paintings. Each window marks a chapter as an album of DOPE LEMON, and Golden Wolf sits perfectly alongside everything we’ve created.” If 2023 predecessor Kimosabè reflected on Stone’s youth and the forces that shaped him, this new chapter looks to the future, wrestling with what may lie ahead. Exhibit A is the title track, a fuzzy, indie-rock meditation on spirituality that considers the afterlife and what, or who, helps the transition from this world to the next. Elsewhere, Golden Wolf maintains DOPE LEMON’s commitment to woozy, ethereal indie rock, veering from blissful sun-soaked jams (“She’s All Time” featuring Nina Nesbitt) to smoky nocturnal grooves (“Electric Green Lambo”), with added dashes of hypnotic psychedelia (“Yamasuki – Yama Yama”) and epic jam band excursions (“Dust of a Thousand Stars”). Here, Stone takes Apple Music through DOPE LEMON’s fifth album, track by track. “John Belushi” “The only VHS we had growing up was The Blues Brothers, and apparently I’d watch it all the time. John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd and all the most incredible artists on Earth, still to this day, I discovered through that film. The song is about someone who gave so much love and burned so bright and, like all things that burn bright, eventually they fall hard. The rise and fall of the greats—great people, or great things that were created. When it hits the chorus it’s about letting that person know that they don’t have to go it alone: ‘I’m going to give you all my love’.” “Sugarcat” “‘Sugarcat’ is based on a slinky, jangly, cool little kitty that sneaks in and out of windows and is always in the right place at the right time and has an insatiable appetite for the finer things in life, but has to sometimes pull off a heist to acquire them. He is a lover’s lover and likes staying up late, drinking martinis with his other kitty cat friends and riding spaceships to other galaxies.” “Electric Green Lambo” “‘Electric Green Lambo’ is one of those nights where you walk into the casino, you pass the billionaires’ cars—the Lambo or the Ferrari—and all the neon lights, it’s all glowing in this ethereal way. There’s all the beautiful carpets and velvet drapes, and it feels like you’re walking into this alternate universe of energy outside of yourself, and it opens these pathways that can bring out the wilder side of you. The wild side could be good or bad. ‘The wolf in the long grass’ is one of the lyrics that can explain it in a metaphorical way. It’s leaning into that dark side of enjoying those one-off nights.” “Golden Wolf” “Conceptually, ‘Golden Wolf’ is talking about our finality and mortality and what happens when we come to the end of what this is here on Earth. When you get to that place, what pulls you through to the other side? What do you take with you, what do you leave behind? Will you pick up the pieces that you think will help you be that better version of yourself? For me, spiritually, the golden wolf is a spirit animal or entity that would take me through to the other side.” “Yamasuki – Yama Yama” “I was watching a film [The Gentlemen] by Guy Ritchie and there was a really dope scene where the original of this song came on, and it was an instrumental. I started singing along while I was watching the film and got in contact with the original writer, and he allowed me to put my take on this beautiful song, which became ‘Yamasuki’.” “We Solid Gold” “‘We Solid Gold’ is a love story of a songwriter falling in love with a smalltown coastal girl. When they’re together nothing else matters and they’re solid gold. When it all starts falling downhill, he’ll make sure he’s always there for her. It’s a quintessential fairy tale sort of song.” “She’s All Time” (feat. Nina Nesbitt) “‘She’s All Time’ was recorded at Sugarcane Mountain Studios. There’s a pool with a bar, and it’s one of those places where it can feel like you could be in Jamaica drinking a rum cocktail by the sea. This song is just about kicking back with a good crew and having a fun night together. I’ve always been a big admirer of Nina Nesbitt, so I contacted her to sing on this song, and it worked out really well.” “Maggie’s Moonshine” “‘Maggie’s Moonshine’ is about falling into a trance and falling in love with someone in a night. Watching the way they move in the moonlight. Being enamoured and almost turned to stone through their charm. I guess it’s one of those, ‘you’re out in the fields sipping on moonshine around the bonfire’ experiences, and there’s a certain sort of Twin Peaks spiral that Maggie takes you down. And that, in a way, is moonshine in itself.” “On the 45” “‘On the 45’ is a song about a rich girl. She’s always in the right place at the right time, she always gets to hang out, be lazy in the backseat, smoking cigarettes, driving through the desert on the 45 to the next party, and doesn’t have a care in the world. She’s a very lovable character, but everyone is jealous of her free will and how easily things come to her. We love her for that.” “Dust of a Thousand Stars” “Writing it was like a psychedelic experience, almost like hopping in an elevator and entering a different level of subconsciousness, almost like [Apple Original series] Severance. Creating it, we all became lost in what it was that we were doing and the jam went for an hour. We cut it back to seven minutes, and we were so stoned, all I could say at the end was, ‘I’m the dust of a thousand burnt-up stars.’ We’re all made up of stars, and it’s such a beautiful and cool thing to remember that we’re everything and nothing at all.”