VIDEO PREMIERE: Austin shoegaze risers THE BRIGHT LIGHT SOCIAL HOUR share live version of new single ‘Ouroboros’

VIDEO PREMIERE: Austin shoegaze risers THE BRIGHT LIGHT SOCIAL HOUR share live version of new single 'Ouroboros'

Austin’s premiere psychedelic-rock connoisseurs The Bright Light Social Hour return with their cosmic, uniquely brilliant new single Ouroboros. Taken from their upcoming album ‘Jude Vol. II’ out August 28 on Roll Call Records, it’s a transcendent journey through psychedelic, distorted guitar licks and spaced out vocal parts. For The Bright Light Social Hour, creating their unique sound is a bittersweet undertaking. In writing their new albums, ‘Jude Vol. I’ and ‘Jude Vol. II’, The Bright Light Social Hour found making music to be a healing, cathartic process after the band was deeply shaken by grief.

In 2015, around the release of the Austin group’s second album Space Is Still The Place, Jackie’s brother Alex, the band’s manager of four years, was deep in the delusional throes of severe and sudden bipolar 1 disorder. They were writing songs for a new album in their home studio on Lake Travis as Alex spiraled. The songs took a turn when Alex took his own life on the shore of the lake, witnessed in its aftermath by Jackie.

“It was a terrible thing, but it was also the most beautiful thing I’ve ever experienced and probably will ever experience,” Jackie says. “This was all happening as we started the record. Not all the songs are about Alex, but I think even the ones that aren’t all have a bittersweet mix of overwhelming beauty and terrible loss. The music deals with the ripples it caused in all of our Lives”

The contiguous albums, titled after Alex’s middle name, are about what it means to lose

someone and then be left to pick up the pieces. In November of 2017, the band drove to Los Angeles, armed with 18 songs that confronted their feelings of grief and loss, and spent several months recording in Sunset Sound with producer Chris Coady (Beach House, Slowdive, Yeah Yeah Yeahs). There they narrowed the tracks down to 15 and found inspiration in the historic studio.

Their unique and melancholic take on shoegaze, psychedelic rock and indie has earnt them plaudits from the likes of Consequence of Sound, NPR, Noisey, Earmilk, Medium and The Huffington Post. They’ve also taken their sound across the country, performing key festivals including Lollapalooza and Austin City Limits. The new single ‘Ouroboros’ showcases the band’s unique production and songwriting style. It’s a track that’s constantly building to Euphoric moments, the distorted guitar licks provide serene moments juxtaposing the harsh vocal sections beautifully. The track finishes with melodic layers building to an epic crescendo for a track that feels like a blissful moment in the new album.

Check out the live video for Ouroboros – BELOW:

Xsnoize Author
Mark Millar is the founder of XS Noize and looks after the daily running of the website as well as hosting interviews for the weekly XS Noize Podcast. Mark's favourite album is Achtung Baby by U2.

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