There is an immediate assurance and calm that impresses from the opening notes of Brooklyn band Lightning Bug's third album A Color of the Sky just out on Fat Possum Records.. Opening track The Return had a lucid clarity that is immediately affecting and encourages anticipation of what will come next.
I always have time for a band that's willing to slow things down, Cowboy Junkies, Red House Painters, Galaxie 500 and Low come immediately to mind, and Lightning Bug slot cosily into that category. A Color of the Sky establishes an atmosphere for itself with deft ease. Recorded in the Catskills, in upstate New York, and sounding like it, the record is nested in autumnal pastoral warmth, you get the sense right away that this and the band are going to prove very good company.
Blessed with a singer in Audrey Kang, who has an evocative, unshowy voice that anchors the sound, There's a loveliness to proceedings here which is very taking. As I said, Cowboy Junkies come to mind, even though much of this doesn't exactly sound like Cowboy Junkies. But what the songs of both bands do share is a drugged, narcotic quality, the sense of being on drugs without actually needing to take drugs. Such is the beauty of the songs and the mood created here.
Everything here is languid delirium. Lightning Bug understand the power of slowing things down in order to capture the quality of a moment or an emotion, or a view. A Color of the Sky is a testament to the importance of appreciating the moment. A seductive and powerful record.
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