With a new album that’s out of this world, New Jersey, USA’s Bright Shining Lights have blipped on my cosmic radar.

By Graeme Smith

The Sun Is A Star is a suitably expansive album, unfolding gradually over sixteen tracks with a sound that implies a sense of mighty scale. Bright Shining Lights go big with it, navigating through inspiration from stellar trailblazers like Pink Floyd, Radiohead, and Hans Zimmer.

It’s a refreshing mix. You hear the cinematic classicality in tracks like Quiet Escape while that post-rock edge comes to the fore in the more dramatic numbers like Black Hole. Melancholy drifts alongside hope like philosophical debris throughout.

The charmingly-titled Let’s Build A House Beside The Moon proves an early highlight thanks to its pulsating notes and slow-burning emotion. The lyrics are rich with fantastical imagery.

Elsewhere Dreaming of Sheep is a delicate, percussive wonder, Speak (Meet Me Where I Am) seeks connection through a mournful piano melody and echoing strings, and One closes things strongly through ghostly layers and undertones of folktronica.

The Sun Is A Star is a truly immersive record from a band who has taken classic sounds and made them their own. It’s a surprise to learn that the whole thing was recorded in a New Jersey basement, given its epic feel.

The album is out now, and you can listen to it below.

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