Back at the beginning of the summer, Nap Eyes broke their four-year silence with a series of new singles with the promise of an imminent new album titled The Neon Gate that would soon house them. Today we’re learning that October 18 is when that new project will arrive, with its nine songs—including “Feline Wave Race” and “Demons”—being released by Paradise of Bachelors (and Paper Bag Records in Canada). With references to Pushkin and N64 inspiring the direction of the tracks we’ve heard so far, the remaining seven recordings couldn’t possibly be dull.
Today also sees the release of the record’s third single (or “transmission,” as the band puts it), “Passageway,” which clocks in at a relatively short four minutes following the six-plus minute prior singles. Less cosmic-Stephen-Malkmus than those previous slacker-folk tracks, the new cut feels like a tightened-up take on The Velvet Underground’s most Middle-Ages informed recordings as it introduces the record’s mellow back half.
“I had the last verse of this song written for a long time, along with a bunch of earlier verses that I didn’t like as much that I eventually discarded,” shares the band’s Nigel Chapman. “Eventually one quiet day when I was not doing too much of anything, I started to come up with the lyrics of the earlier verses—just in my head without an instrument or speaking them out loud, which is unusual for me. So the song was generated by this out-of-the-ordinary writing method, but I think this resulted in a song that is pretty different from anything else I’ve written to date.”
Check out “Passageway” below, and pre-order The Neon Gate here.
