Lightheaded

Share new single, "Moments Notice" - Listen here

Taken from debut album, Combustible Gems,
due 17th May on Slumberland Records

UK Summer Tour Announced
inc. London's The Lexington on 24th July w/ Birdie and Tony Molina

Slumberland Records will release the debut album from New Jersey’s Lightheaded on 17th May. Titled Combustible Gems, it’s a falling, laughing, charming pop debut and follows the trio’s recent EP Good Good Great! which saw copies flying out of UK record shops, becoming an underground hot tip in indie circles.

Lightheaded will come over to the UK for the first time this summer, with dates including London's The Lexington on 24th July alongside Birdie and Tony Molina, and Glasgow’s Glas-Goes Pop fest. Full info below.

Lightheaded are free-ranging students of pop, drawing as much from 60s Brill Building song writers as they do from later 60s folk/pop developments and 80s DIY pop. New single "Moments Notice" is a killer tune, rhythmic and catchy in a way that hearkens back to The Jam & early Comet Gain, spiked with soft-pop DNA that should make fans of folks like the Free Design swoon. Another brilliantly fresh & distinctive example of why Lightheaded are one of the most talked-about indiepop bands in ages.

Lightheaded - Moments Notice
https://songwhip.com/lightheaded2/moments-notice

Album preorder: https://slumberlandrecs.lsnto.me/combustible-gems

"Moments Notice is a song about social energy, or our lack there of sometimes," explains Stephen from the band. "The lyrics are all about being ready to leave anywhere in public at the drop of a hat because you’d rather just be home alone with that one person you’d really rather spend your time with."

Lightheaded UK Live Dates:

19th July - Brighton, UK - Rossi Bar w/Mt Misery
20th July - Cardiff, UK - TBA w/Mt Misery
21st July - Oxford, UK - TBA w/Mt Misery
22nd July - Leeds, UK - Royal Park Cellars w/Mt Misery
23rd July - Sheffield, UK - The Delicious Clam w/Mt Misery
24th July - London, UK - The Lexington w/Birdie & Tony Molina
25th July - Manchester, UK - Gulliver's w/Mt Misery
26th July - Glasgow, UK - Glas-Goes Pop! festival
28th July - Glasgow, UK - Monorail w/Mt Misery

Cynthia and Stephen write pop songs in the classic sense, and though they are young they're already familiar with the good stuff. Cynthia wears a Gene Clark tee shirt and is a fan of Dusty Springfield, The Aislers Set, and Joan Jett. Stephen worships at the altar of Big Star, The Clientele, and The Go-Betweens. As with bands like The Aislers Set and Belle & Sebastian, you hear an aural kaleidoscope, the history pop music and the best rock and roll, in the music of Lightheaded.

What you hold in your hand now is their debut LP Combustible Gems - an LP about a band finding their sound, exploring notes, chords, and melody and making uncannily great music along the way. First single "Dawn Hush Lullaby" features an electric folk-pop sensibility that starts like a waltz, but goes into Greenwich Village pop time, like a sweet Norma Tanega tune. "Moments Notice" is a killer tune, rhythmic and catchy. It starts off like Motown or The Jam, but then Sara's hypnotic, hooky guitar riff takes the song some place else, shooting off into soft pop heaven, like kid siblings of the Free Design.

"Hugging Horizons" is the Sound of Young New Jersey. It's soul music, but by experimenting and playing around, they have accidentally invented some sort of New New Pop. "Because of You" ends the album on a real high, featuring Johnny Marr style guitar and some gorgeous strings. It's poignant and sophisticated, but still eager, slightly gauche even. And as always refreshingly, wonderfully, naively sincere.

Combustible Gems is a jump into the sparkling blue water, excited experimentation, exploration, finding themselves, with the effervescence of youth that makes for great debut LPs. It has the youthful urgency of Comet Gain, the wide-eyed nostalgia of early Orange Juice, the suss and anti-macho swagger of those early Pastels singles. It yearns for something, it is an exciting, stumbling, falling, laughing, charming, great pop debut.

Slumberland's Lightheaded share "Moments Notice" from debut album Combustible Gems, due 17th May + UK live dates

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