Myra Lee’s 'Capture The Flag' Holds Tight to Live One-Take Intimacy and Raw Emotion
There’s a distinct kind of electricity in an album recorded live, with the band playing together in one room, nerves and all. Myra Lee’s debut album under that name, 'Capture The Flag', released June 26, 2026, was tracked this way, in just two days, in a basement studio on New York’s Lower East Side. The result is a six-song collection that feels close, immediate, and full of the raw edges that polish often smooths away.
The band-Tahlia Amanson (vocals/guitar), Aiden Velazquez (bass), and McCabe Teems (drums)-were formerly known as Dino Expedition. They took their new name from Cat Power’s 1996 album 'Myra Lee', a fitting homage given their shared affinity for open tunings, raw feeling, and the more unvarnished side of ’90s indie rock. As Dino Expedition they had already released 'Thanks a Million' in 2024, so 'Capture The Flag' is a debut under the new name, not a first record. The album was live-tracked with engineer Jeremy Harris, known for work with Devendra Banhart and Hand Habits, then mixed and mastered by Calvin Lauber in Memphis, who has credits with Boygenius and Julien Baker.
From the opening track 'Corkscrew Drawers', the band sets a tone of intimate storytelling. The song links the image of wine corks in a kitchen drawer with personal memories of alcoholism and fraught family relationships. The guitars scrape and drift, vocals sit plainly in the mix, and the rhythm section carries just enough weight to keep the songs grounded without feeling overworked. This approach runs through the entire album, giving it a lived-in feel that invites listeners into a small, direct world.
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The themes across 'Capture The Flag' are heavy but handled with a quiet strength: grief, sexuality, alcoholism, memory, and self-recognition thread through tracks like 'Magpie', 'Dean', and the reflective 'Ten'. The latter looks back on the awkward decade between early teens and adulthood, exploring identity and the fear of others’ opinions with a frankness that feels both personal and universal.
Myra Lee’s sound is a compelling blend of overdriven guitars and a lighter, more delicate vocal presence. It’s music that builds and swells, sometimes feverish and slow-burning, sometimes quietly weighted, but always versatile and heartfelt. Their Brooklyn roots come through in the collaborative spirit and the way the city’s artistic energy seems to seep into their evolving sound.
'Capture The Flag' is not polished smooth, and that’s part of its charm. It sounds like a band finding its shape by leaving the nerves in, capturing moments of vulnerability and strength in equal measure. For anyone drawn to the emotional immediacy of ’90s indie rock with a modern twist, Myra Lee’s debut offers a compelling listen.
Start here: 'Corkscrew Drawers' for the opener, 'Magpie' for the lead single, and 'Ten' for the reflective focus track, a six-minute look back at the decade between the early teens and adulthood.
Where to follow: Bandcamp, Instagram @myraleeband, and YouTube.