release date: Jun. 25, 2021
format: digital
[album rate: 4 / 5] [3,75]
producer: Lightning Bug
label: Fat Possum Records - nationality: USA
Track highlights: 1. "The Return" (live) - 2. "The Right Thing Is Hard to Do" (live) - 3. "September Song, Pt. II" - 4. "Wings of Desire" - 6. "Song of the Bell" - 7. "I Lie Awake" - 10. "The Flash"
3rd studio album by American indie pop band Lightning Bug is the band's first on an actual record label, as their first two albums were pure self-releases. Yet the band is still in full control with keyboardist Logan Miley as mixer and the band themselves in the role as producer. On the their first two outings, the band was a trio but it's now expanded to a quintet with the addition of bassist Vincent Puleo and drummer Dane Hagen, and thus it has been possible to record the album live in the studio, where vocalist and songwriter Audrey Kang previously both played bass and drum tracks.
The style has become more laid back, more spacious and ethereal bonding stronger to dream pop, although it also sounds like a natural extension of the band's second album October Sky (2019). Still, Cocteau Twins and other 80s and 90s dream pop bands pop to mind, but on the album here you may also notice a more apparent inspiration from the two final albums by post-rock band Talk Talk as well as Mazzy Star. It's a fine mix of ambient noise and primarily melodic harmonies, and the album appears to me, as the band's finest to date.
