New Music – The Bright Light Social Hour ‘Ouroboros 20’

Austin’s premiere connoisseurs of the psychedelic, trip-inducing rock music The Bright Light Social Hour, return this summer with a brand new album ‘Jude Vol.2’. Having heard a number of the tracks up to this point, it’s looking likely to be a transcendent journey through 70’s psychedelic, with a touch of contemporary production and the new single is no different.

The Austin four-piece are a force of nature when it comes to their music, but there’s a sad undertone to their catalogue, due to the tragic inspiration behind their art. While working on a previous album, the band’s manager of four years, was deep in the delusional throes of severe and sudden bipolar 1 disorder. The songs took a turn when he took his own life on the shore of the lake, witnessed in its aftermath by brother 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 songs on the album reflect each of the bands members ability or disability to cope with the tragic loss. Songwriting and recording, was the only catharsis they found in the difficult time. The new single is a potent, effervescent journey with spacey guitar licks and epic moments throughout.

Words by Aidan Grant