A year ago, NEW LORE was a newly formed all-girl band writing deeply specific songs about grief, friendship, coffee, art, and the kinds of thoughts usually left buried in a Notes app at 2 a.m. Today, they're on Spotify RADAR Philippines billboards across Metro Manila, landing on editorial playlists worldwide, collaborating with OPM icon Barbie Almalbis, and celebrating the release of their sophomore album "good good juju" with a packed launch festival in Makati. Most recently, they appeared on a billboard in Times Square, the sort of milestone artists usually pin to vision boards rather than achievement lists.

The album arrives as a companion to their acclaimed debut, "grief cake." If that record was about sitting with loss, uncertainty, and growing pains long enough to understand them, "good good juju" feels like the season that follows. Not necessarily happier, but undeniably more hopeful.

As the band explains, the title carries a double meaning. "Our vocalist, Tita Halaman, has a nickname: Juju," they shared. "A lot of the songs on the album are drawn from her own experiences, observations, and stories."

That cautious optimism runs through the album's eight tracks. Opener "gud ppl" eases listeners in with breezy indie-pop energy and warm guitar lines reminiscent of Grouplove. "june" feels like a handwritten journal entry set to music, while "my crush and i will crush the system baby" bursts with psychedelic whimsy, as if The Flaming Lips wandered into a campus protest and decided to stay. "substack girl" may be the album's most adventurous moment, channeling the textured eccentricity of Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party. Elsewhere, "girlhood" leans into soul, groove, and funk with the effortless cool of The Internet, while "i know u by heart" delivers irresistibly sweet indie-pop that would feel right at home beside The Cardigans.

The album's emotional centerpiece arrives with "your playlist is a lie," NEW LORE's first collaboration, featuring Almalbis. Dreamy, intimate, and quietly devastating, it carries traces of early Japanese Breakfast. The collaboration itself still feels surreal to the band.

"Oh my gosh, we still can't believe it," they admitted. "We sent her the song, hoping she'd like it, and she said yes. That's honestly the story."

For a group that grew up listening to Almalbis, the experience remains difficult to process. "We still see ourselves as kids who grew up listening to her music and looking up to what she's done for Filipino music," they said.

Closing track "nariyan" offers another surprise, drawing subtle inspiration from the sonic DNA of Barbie's Cradle and early Up Dharma Down. It ends the record on a note that feels both nostalgic and optimistic, looking toward a future that may not be perfect but is worth believing in.

The momentum behind "good good juju" was impossible to ignore at the Good Good Juju Festival, which transformed a standard album launch into something closer to a gathering for young creatives. The band remains overwhelmed by the response.

"We're incredibly grateful that so many people showed up and chose to spend their day with us," they said.

One interaction, in particular, stayed with them. "An old fan came up to us and said, 'Hindi na kami ten.' Back when we started, we could practically count our audience on our fingers," the band recalled. "Hearing that while looking at a packed room was emotional in a way that's hard to describe."

For NEW LORE, "good good juju" is not a separate story from "grief cake" but the next chapter in the same narrative.

"'grief cake' was about sitting with loss, growing pains, and learning how to carry difficult feelings," they explained. "'good good juju' feels like the season after that. It's about choosing joy, choosing love, and choosing to keep going despite everything."

The result is a record that feels increasingly rare in modern indie music: an album less interested in grand declarations than in small acts of hope. While much of the industry chases trends and algorithms, NEW LORE continues building something more lasting, a world of its own. And judging by the growing crowd gathering around it, more people are stepping inside every day. (Ian Ureta)