“Lanterna Magica” is the latest release by Night’s Bright Colors, a music outlet by Jason Smith and Kevin Boggs, outstanding songwriters and musicians based in Asheville, North Carolina. It’s their fourth full-length record, arriving as an adequate follow-up to their self-titled album, released in 2023. It’s a comprehensive collection of catchy, memorable, engaging songs that will immediately appeal to anyone looking for cleverly assembled and flawlessly performed music. Lyrically, “Lanterna Magica” explores themes such as love, relationships, friendships, various sentiments, moods, situations, and circumstances, so it’s a highly relatable material that will immediately resonate with the broader auditorium. Inspired by bands such as Beatles, Shins, Pixies, and Built To Spill, Night’s Bright Colors combines many different but complementary music genres to illustrate rich and luxurious sonic imagery. Perhaps indie rock comes to mind first, but don’t be surprised if you stumble upon some of the finest properties borrowed from alternative, art rock, power pop, Britpop, and shoegaze music. They use all these additional elements as more than necessary enhancements, accentuations, decorations, and other details to uplift their music to a new level while simultaneously remaining loyal to the primary sonic direction. Therefore, these experimentations with many different but complementary music styles resulted in a magnificent album that will immediately grab you by the collar and refuse to let go long after it ends.
As soon as you press play, it becomes apparent that Night’s Bright Colors invested a lot of time and effort in writing, composing, arranging, recording, and producing their latest material. Each composition enclosed within “Lanterna Magica” arrives with a perfect structure, adorned with many profoundly detailed segments, ideas, and orchestrations. The duo thought about even the tiniest details, nuances, and accentuations while assembling this album, making it a pleasant listening experience worth repeating over and over again. From the onset, you’ll notice a calm, soothing, relaxing, ethereal ambiance wrapping around the listening apparatus. Songs like “Woke Up,” “As Y Approaches Infinity,” “The Trivial Pursuit Of Happiness,” “Parlor Games,” “Slow Wave,” “Change The Colors,” and “Spring Tomorrow” are just some of the songs where their dedication to delivering otherworldly ambiance shines in the limelight. These songs showcase their profound love for power pop, dream pop, Britpop, and cinematic downtempo music. You’ll also notice how passionate, sincere, confident, emotional, and powerful vocal performance serves as a centerpiece, commanding attention while guiding listeners throughout the entire album. These vocal harmonies are calm yet they seamlessly balance over low, mid, and high notes with such precision and finesse, emphasizing everything these skillful musicians intended to achieve with their music. These vocal maneuvers decorate each segment and instrumentation while contributing emotional depth and elevating each song to new heights.
In the meantime, the cleverly assembled, expertly performed, memorable guitar interplays shape a perfect backdrop for all the vocals to shine upon. You’ll stumble upon a comprehensive collection of mesmerizing chord progressions, harmonies, melodies, themes, and other sonic delicacies, seamlessly colliding into a colossal slab of ear-appealing noise. It’s nearly mindblowing how all these guitar layers articulate without overwhelming each other, demonstrating the tremendous experience of these musicians. Tracks like “Woke Up,” “As Y Approaches Infinity,” “The Grand Society,” “The Libertine,” “Slow Wave,” “Eastern Thought,” “Change The Colors,” “Map To You,” “The Rise And Rise of Daniel Rocket” are just some of the highlights where these guitar works resonate with full force and you should unquestionably pay attention to the entire album, because these folks fully stacked this “Lanterna Magica” with jaw-dropping instrumentations. You’ll also notice some synth works on this epic sonic voyage, usually accentuating, decorating, and elevating particular segments and moments. It’s such a nice touch that flawlessly matches the ambiance of these tracks, adding even more complexity to an already intricate material. It’s also good to mention that all these guitars and synths match vocals harmoniously, making “Lanterna Magica” even more pleasant to the ears.
Of course, this magnificent collection of songs wouldn’t sound this good without the rock-solid rhyme section. Night’s Bright Colors skillfully implemented subtle yet vividly hearable, equally intricate, warm-sounding basslines, so you’ll notice them roaring beneath all those guitar works and contributing more heaviness, clarity, and depth while binding the remainder of orchestrations with rhythmic patterns. These low-ends are rich, dense, and luxuriant, contributing more power to these compositions. In the meantime, the exceptional drumming performance based upon tastefully arranged, expertly performed, well-accentuated, moderate beats, breaks, fills, and other percussive acrobatics keeps these instrumentations in line while dictating the groove and tempo. Each hit of the snare and beat of the kick drum give more than necessary punch and groove that cuts the calm, soothing, relaxing ambiance yet doesn’t spoil the ethereal ambiance. Night’s Bright Colors thought about everything while writing and composing their latest release, so if the guitars and keys act as a perfect backdrop for all the vocals to shine upon then the bass and drums serve as a backbone, holding everything together.
“Lanterna Magica” is a marvelous full-length album that showcases Night’s Bright Colors’ tremendous experience, knowledge, skills, creativity, and talent. With all those brilliant ideas and outstanding musicianship included within each song, it’s one of those records that tackles all the senses and forces listeners to contemplate. It’s a highly relatable material that will undoubtedly resonate with the broader auditorium, so you should immediately place it on your music radar if you’re looking for catchy, memorable, beautiful music, packed with raw emotion and otherwordly soundscapes. “Lanterna Magica” is available on all streaming platforms. Don’t miss it!
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