Sending Up Flares (due out September 29th via Fluff and Gravy Records), the fourth record from Casey Neill & The Norway Rats, is the sound of a band rallying together, turning the genre-bending range of its influences into the group’s most cohesive, cathartic album yet. Created amidst chaos and uncertainty, these songs offer a lifeline to a world in need of balance, shot through with stories about resolve, resilience, wonder, and positive human interaction.
With Sending Up Flares, Casey Neill & The Norway Rats don’t just make themselves seen; they make themselves heard, too. Each of the band’s previous albums explored the evolving range of Neill’s musical interests, from the dreamy Americana songs that filled 2010’s Goodbye to the Rank and File to the electronic textures that peppered 2018’s Subterrene (whose critically-acclaimed songs received praise from Rolling Stone and No Depression). Here, the Portland-based supergroup finds room for everything, turning a wealth of musical influences — including folk, punk, art-rock, atmospheric soundscapes, guitar freak-outs, and string arrangements — into something singular. “I love exploring all of the music I love,” says Neill, who even nods to artistic role models like David Bowie, author Ursula K. Le Guin, and filmmaker Wim Wenders in the song “Meteor Shower.” “Sending Up Flares feels like we’ve reached a point where the band has settled into a natural, nuanced place”, he adds. “This is who we are. It’s what we do.”
Today Glide is excited to premiere the standout tune “Meteor Shower,” a sonically rich composition that fuses power pop and folk-rock to make for a potent mix that as powerful lyrically as it is instrumentally. Neill sings with a foreboding sense of beauty, which is accentuated by the harmonies of his backing band. We get colorful piano and synth, a swaying drum beat, and big guitar movement to make for a song loaded with emotional impact. For fans of the more intellectually-charged rock that sometimes comes from the Pacific Northwest, this tune is a must-listen.
Casey Neill describes the inspiration behind the song:
”‘Meteor Shower’ is filled with direct references to some of the art that has inspired me the most – Ursula K Le Guin’s writings on the power of names, Bowie in Berlin, Whitman’s teeming NYC street visions, and most of all the radical empathy central to the Wim Wenders’ film ‘Wings of Desire’. The song began as a chord progression played as an afterthought at the tail end of an all day demoing session. Chet Lyster and I honed the cyclical pattern to give it a lighter propulsive feel and added the instrumental interlude. The structure freed me up to lay a flurry of words over the top. The world can feel so small with our heads in our phones and I wanted to remind myself that life is tactile and expansive. Nature, art, beauty, travel, romance, the continuum we feel with our friends and loved ones present and gone – it’s about how we carry it all with us. As with everything, the story is the message and the music is the glue.”
LISTEN:
