New Release of the Week: Nap Eyes - The Neon Gate

After three years of silence, Nova Scotia’s ‘Nap Eyes’ have returned with their own meditations on the monstrous and familiar (or the monstrously familiar).

The Neon Gate, their metamorphic fifth long-player, collects a cache of nine fascinating reveries.

‘I See Phantoms of Hatred and of the Heart's Fullness and of the Coming Emptiness’, the album’s colossal penultimate track, is, along with ‘Demons’, the band’s languorous adaptation of a phantasmagorical poem by Russian romantic Alexander Pushkin (1799–1837).

On these two ambitious but adept pieces, singer and principal songwriter Nigel Chapman unravels knotty, century-old verse into fluid, memorable melodies across the loom of the band’s pulsing musical creations.

With The Neon Gate, Nap Eyes have transmuted, as has their understanding of what a song is, what it can do, where it might go. For fans of Yo La Tengo, Kurt Vile, Courtney Barnett, Belle and Sebastian, and all things Lou Reed.

Sound Pick: WH Lung - Every Inch of Earth Pulsates

‘A huge thing for this record was to make it feel as close to our live show as possible,’ says Tom Sharkett of W.H. Lung’s latest album.

The band decided to try something new on their third record, after two incredibly successful collaborations with previous producer Matt Peel.

In order to capture the energy, spirit and dynamism of their live shows, they relocated to Sheffield to work with Ross Orton (MIA, Arctic Monkeys, Working Men’s Club) who was able to harness this side of the band to remarkable effect.

It is still a meticulously composed, delicately layered and pristinely produced piece of work that, in true WH Lung style, runs the gamut from dance to pop to indie while still capturing that distinctly unique quality that is unquestionably their own.