The Neon Gate, the fifth album from Halifax, Nova Scotia indie-rockers Nap Eyes finds the band adapting poems from Alexander Pushkin and W.B. Yeats, meditating on everything from philosophy to the surreal and celebrating the joy of video games…
‘Eight Tired Starlings’ opens the record with Nigel Chapman claiming ‘My whole world opened again’ against a stripped-back alt-country sound. He continues soul searching as he looks to the subject – ‘I know that’s something you do when you’re feeling down’ – before moving in a Postal Service direction on the bouncy ‘Dark Mystery Enigma Bird’. ‘Demons’ has elements of Nick Cave, emo and baroque pop and the combination is darkly delicious: ‘Some demons got us, that’s a fact. Some demons lead us astray’.
‘Feline Wave Race’ begins with talk of a 15th century and trying to escape: ‘I was contemplating walking out of the grounds. Maybe it wasn’t me at all’. ‘Le Gross Underpass’ has a Wilco feel while ‘Passageway’ considers letting things go and starting to look ahead: ‘I let the thought drop from my head and that night my sleep was sound’. ‘Phantoms of Hatred and of the Heart’s Fullness and of the Coming Emptiness’ lives up to its fantastic title with a slower, swaying sound surrounding words about magical unicorns, friendship and an ‘Embrace of nothing’.
‘Isolation’ – not surprisingly, it was written during lockdown – is an 8 and a half minute epic to close the album. At times proggy and others cheeky with a slackerpop guitar solo that reminded us of Adam Green’s ‘Dance With Me’, it’s a fitting end to a kaleidoscopic album you’ll want to step into/.
