"a neon girl / a love you own / abandon all your avenues... / sparrow on the run / gallows on the sun..."
Starting with a earworm acoustic guitar prog that could of very well graced David Bowie's 1972 masterpiece "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars" and then veering off into mid 80's artful punk (maybe part Pixies meets part The Jesus and Mary Chain meets part The Replacements meets XTC meets part The Kinks) and I am sinking quickly into the sonic quicksand of "Sparrows" by Bay Area's No Lights.
From the band, itself an amalgam, [sharing members with Kowloon Walled City (Ian Miller, Dan Sneddon), and a formidable list of past projects that includes Early Graves (Matt O'Brien, Dan Sneddon), Set Your Goals (Israel Branson), and Grace Alley] I gleefully am lost in the heaviness of it all, the pushed bass and drums, sparkling off kilter (yet gorgeous) floating guitar notes, acoustic and electric rhythms made of surprising shapes (and colors) and a gritty vocal countenance that is as busted up as it is dreadfully cool.
About "Sparrows", from No Lights' debut album "Dream Eraser" dropping June 9th (2023), Matt O'Brien's reveals:
"Thematically the song is about alienation. Although, the lyrics give a kind of non linear narration that is open to interpretation. Some passages could be construed as a depiction of a sex worker protagonist navigating through a cityscape of savages. Like many of the songs on "Dream Eraser, The listener is invited to draw on their own experiences and decide what the song is about for them".
I am also digging the compelling Official Video that feels like a film pastiche as directed and edited by Justis Krar:
"Essentially, I want to juxtapose the new with the old (new cars and junkyards), and indoor spaces of "beauty" (office buildings and homes) with the outdoors. Like how we think there is optimization to everything but is optimization the point of it all?"
- Robb Donker Curtius
THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM
https://open.spotify.com/artist/0nsJq4aVPTKDqh4lboFKVN
https://nolightsband.bandcamp.com/album/dream-eraser
https://www.instagram.com/nolightsband/
There isn't an obvious phonic principle that connects the post-punk, indie pop of No Lights to more than two decades of Bay Area hardcore and metal. Perhaps it's more a family resemblance than anything else, sharing members with Kowloon Walled City (Ian Miller, Dan Sneddon), and a formidable list of past projects that includes Early Graves (Matt O'Brien, Dan Sneddon), Set Your Goals (Israel Branson), and Grace Alley. Like the streets of San Francisco in a Hitchcock movie, there is something familiar here, but never obvious whether it’s more beautiful or more troubling than real life. The references don't evoke nostalgia, aren't reverential. And trying to pinpoint specific influences is like trying to tell the difference between the digital and the analog, between tubes and tape and bits and bites: an exercise in feeling rather than precision. No Lights released their double EP, "Stay Awake, June Bug," just before the world shut down in early 2020. 2023 brings their debut full length record, "Dream Eraser."
No Lights, Bay Area, alt rock, debut full length "Dream Eraser", heavy guitars, "Sparrows" Official Video,
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