Lights Off – Foxglove
Last week, Manchester’s female-fronted euphoric alternative band Foxglove unleashed ‘Lights Off’; a dark and enigmatic part two of one of their previous singles from 2020; ‘Bright Lights’. We featured ‘Lights Off’ on this week’s playlist and is their first release of 2022 following on from ‘Birthday’ and ‘Give It Up’ last year.
With a gritty bass driving throughout, ‘Lights Off’ is a hypnotic track- focusing on capturing the vivid feelings of a fever dream visually, musically and lyrically. Taking inspiration from The Neighbourhood’s ‘Sweater Weather’ and pulling high synths from electronic duo Prospa, bright and springy guitar tones contrast with dark and dissonant chords; the guitar parts over the hip-hop choppy drum beats also create what feels like a constantly moving landscape. The fever dream feeling is also implemented through the music video, referencing stylistic traits of Quentin Tarantino films and mirroring scenes from The Joker, further adding to the confusion felt within a fever dream. Through scattered lyrics inspired by TV shows, books and Abi White’s mysterious scribblings jotted down between the state of consciousness of being awake and asleep, none of the lyrics make sense as stand-alone lines but when heard all together they have an odd and cryptic meaning that closes the ‘Bright Lights’ chapter.
Check out this excellent new track here:
Lead singer Abi said of the track: “This is the first track I wrote lyrically like this, by taking inspirations from lines within TV dramas, books and the lyrics I jot down on my phone as I’m in a state of consciousness between being awake and asleep.I think it mirrors the confusion you feel when you’ve had a vivid dream, and I really wanted us to capture this through the video too, which I think Nick Dunleavy (director) did an exceptional job of.”
Guitarist Ryan adds “Within the verses I really wanted to capture this back street, dark, neon, 80’s feel that complimented the big snare hits and the driving bass. Then when it came to the chorus, over the top of the clean chords you can hear a palm muted popping guitar motif, which was inspired by ‘Scritti Politti – Absolute’. I wanted a pop element in some part of the song and this motif was a phrase that I played for a few weeks before recording, it was stuck in my head for days, so I knew I had to get it in there.”
Foxglove are Abi White, Ryan Croney, Liam Croney and Joe Myers. You can follow them on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.
