Jul 03 : "Follow Me Home" - The Mystery Lights (Brooklyn)

New Music / Freshly Written & Recently Released (June 24)

The Mystery Lights always do a good show. I've heard The Mystery Lights play all over, both in Philly and New York, and I think their show at Kung Fu Necktie last week was one that was right up there at the top. They were the reason I headed to Kung Fu on June 22. I have new developments to report.

Getting ahead of myself, the bands biggest news is that, with their collaboration with Wick Records, a subsidiary of Dapstone records, they just released their debut full-length album, "The Mystery Lights". The release date, party, and show was actually on June 24 at Mercury Lounge, two days after the Kung Fu show.

The sound work was great at Kung Fu last week. I could hear all the components, vocals and instruments, all individually as well as all together as one. The sound work allowed for more texture and nuance (which was also a big plus for "The Snails", which I wrote about in my previous posting).

And this was the right time for the better sound work at Kung Fu because The Mystery Lights has a lot of new songs and a number of new arrangements of some of their standards, and this venue was the ideal showcase for such an effort. A lot of the music the band played at Kung Fu is the music that's on the new album. Some of the songs had appeared before, either on ep or just streaming on the band's online platforms, but some of the songs are completely new.

So what's new in the new arrangements? Maybe a little more organ, for one thing. (The band calls it an "organ", not "keys". This is probably the true garage terminology). We can hear that at the beginning of the updated and revised "What Happens When You Turn the Devil Down?" as well as a very pronounced organ intro in the new "Follow Me Home". While the band's music as a whole is a rock explosion, there have also some changes in tempo, including a little slowing down of "Before My Own". In this song, there's also a unique guitar tonality.

So the music in the new album has more songs with pronounced individual stylings and characteristics, and at the same time, the arrangements are done in a way so that each component, the vocals and each instrument, have a chance to individually shine. This was a perfect match with the excellent sound work at Kung Fu last Wednesday night.

Their new album marks a big step forward in their writing, their arrangements, and their performance. You should listen to this album. Here is a sample. This is "Follow Me Home", which is the album's second track :::

If you like what you hear and you want to see them live, you're in luck. The Mystery Lights is coming back a week from Friday (July 15) to do another show at Kung Fu. In the meantime, you can go hear this album on their Bandcamp page ::: The Mystery Lights on Bandcamp (CLICK HERE) and you can keep up with their tour dates on Facebook ::: The Mystery Lights on Facebook (CLICK HERE).