Some songs arrive as a plan. Lights Down arrived as a leftover. Ottawa band Baby Richman were in the studio in Muskoka, running out of time, unable to agree on what to cut, so they started picking through the trash. Lead vocalist and songwriter Colin Paul had not even planned to show the guys the voice note. That afterthought is now their debut single, sitting past 46,000 Spotify streams, with a follow-up already lined up for October 16.
Submitted as commercial, adult contemporary, and folk pop, Lights Down still wears the guitar-band DNA the group talks about openly. Oasis, The Smashing Pumpkins, and Coldplay are the named reference points, and you can hear why. The arrangement moves under a canopy of glowing guitar swells, melancholy vocals, and heavenly harmonies. It is not a stadium blast. It is the kind of indie rock that has learned how to sit next to adult contemporary playlists without sanding off the feeling. Folk pop listeners who want a story, and commercial radio listeners who want a chorus they can hum after one pass, both have a way in.
The writing started after Paul found out an ex was getting married. He finished it when he found out he was never getting married. That double ending sits in the lyric. Another day, another heartbreak. A falling out. The image of someone else taking her home. The hook keeps circling the same instruction: lights down, keep them down. It is less a breakup anthem than a refusal to keep watching. The production, cut alongside several other songs over the course of a year with Hollerado lead guitarist Nixon Boyd, gives that refusal room. Swells rise, harmonies stack, and the vocal stays close enough that the bruise does not get dressed up into a slogan.
Baby Richman began as childhood friends who cut their teeth on The Beatles: Rock Band. The lineup that exists now took shape after Paul and bassist Aaron Britton moved from Pembroke to Ottawa and linked up with virtuoso twin brothers Robin Hamilton-Craig on lead guitar and Alaster Hamilton-Craig on drums. They play honest, guitar-driven sets around the city, including rooms like The Rainbow and outdoor dates such as BistroFest at Hog’s Back. On Spotify they are already pulling a few thousand monthly listeners, and the debut is showing up on easy-listening and reception-style playlists as well as the expected indie shelves. That split is useful. Adult contemporary and folk pop are crowded with polished heartbreak, but a four-piece that still sounds like friends in a room has a different kind of stickiness.
The rest of the Muskoka sessions are slated for late 2026 and early 2027. Shadows on the Wall is the next marker, set for October 16, with a pre-save already up. The band has said they plan to stay active. Given that the song they almost did not record is the one carrying the first chapter, the voice-note pile is worth paying attention to.
Guitar-driven folk pop with a commercial spine is having a quiet moment again. Festival indie and playlist adult contemporary keep borrowing from each other, and bands that can do both without sounding like a focus group are the ones that travel. Baby Richman are early, but the ingredients are already there: a real story, a chorus that states its terms, and a recording that does not rush the swell.
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What do you think of this kind of guitar-swell heartbreak, closer to Coldplay than to a folk confession? Let me know in the comments.
