THE MIDNIGHT – Monsters (2020) *EXCLUSIVE*

Synthwave duo THE MIDNIGHT are favorites of this blog team, mixing ’80s inspired sounds with poppy AORish melodies. These guys are supremely talented at building entire worlds on a bedrock of universal themes and eminently catchy hooks. The first time this was wholly realized was the 2018 album ‘Kids’, which seemed to conjure memories of childhood innocence amid the dissolution of the American Dream in the 1980s.
On new album ‘Monsters‘ — released nearly six years to the day from their debut LP ‘Days of Thunder’ — the duo of Tim McEwan and Tyler Lyle study the fiery extremes of adolescence through a lens of wistfulness for the early 90s. The result is an extraordinary body of songs that form a true, full-album experience. With that in mind, ‘Monsters’ is best heard as a whole.

From the moment ‘Monsters’ kicks off with the familiar squawk of a dial-up modem, we’re brought into the world of online services, simple website designs, and dilemmas both big and small. “America Online” is the first full song following the intro. Its pure Moods-style atmospheric vibe pulsates with a hypnotic catchiness in a dark, monitor-lit bedroom at 3 A.M.
The online services of the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, and especially the World Wide Web later on, promised a global interconnectedness that would change humanity forever. However, it wasn’t long before it all failed to live up to the promise of that utopian intent. Instead, the Internet has largely connected us on superficial levels at best, or degraded society at worst.
With the onslaught of the COVID-19 pandemic, the internet has become our main way to connect with each other even as states and countries start to “open up” again.

When Lyle’s queries about acceptance and love on “America Online” come into play through some disembodied sound effects, it’s a question of both concern and curiosity that he ultimately answers: “We are all one beating heart.” Utopia is possible, perhaps.

The jubilant ’80s Phil Collins vibes of “Dance With Somebody” bring you to the high-school dance floor, where merely asking someone to dance, and actually dancing with them if they say “yes,” is like solving world peace.
This is an especially potent message for those who were like I was my first couple years of high school: A wallflower cynical about the idea of just having a little fun every now and then. (“Look at those suckers smiling and dancing!”)

The Hughes-Eighties movie soundtrack feel of “Prom Night” ups the stakes even more: “Hold her hand,” Lyle sings, “We’ll never pass this way again.” An overflow of beautiful synths, some glimmering guitars, and a purposeful drum machine reinforce the urgency. If you don’t dance now, you never will. It’s now or NEVER.
The energy required for this much urgency is immense. The festival-ready “Fire in the Sky” has this ferocious energy that only teens have — it practically summons the Four Horsemen with its intensity.

The crystalline “Seventeen,” one of my favorite songs on the album, seems to be a brief flash-forward to those teens as adults. Maybe they have adolescents of their own and they’re looking back at what seems to them to be easier times. The haze of memory is a great friend to nostalgia, after all.
The searing guitar solo is like a chariot of reminiscence, carrying people to a place where the “big decisions” of who to ask to prom retrospectively seem minuscule. Funny how the past always seems simpler, regardless of your age.

The laidback “Dream Away,” another of my favorite cuts on the record, embodies a modern-but-nostalgic retro-synth vibe. One notable element is a pitched-down sample of an Indonesian woman singing and another is the ambient murmurs of the rain forest. Atop are a cadre of mallet stabs and Lyle’s reassurances that no matter how lost you feel, there’s a community looking for you.

There are three instrumental passages situated throughout the album that carry on this atmosphere. The first is “The Search for Ecco,” which follows “Dream Away.” It works like an epilogue to the latter. It’s a blissed-out, ocean-gaze number, and it works as a great transition between “Dream Away” and “Prom Night.”

“Helvetica” serves as a transition point between what’s before it — the absolute banger title cut featuring The Midnight affiliates Jupiter Winter — and what comes after — the subdued and beautifully reflective “Brooklyn.”
“City Dreams (interlude)” incorporates parts of “Seventeen” and takes it down a K-hole of vaporwave-induced transcendence. It’s a hypnotic number. Like the other instrumentals above, it also creates a great transition to album closer “Last Train” from the classic sounds of “Deep Blue” and the haunting “Night Skies.”

“Last Train” creates a perfect circle for the record — Lyle again declares that we’re all one beating heart. But by this point the themes and sentiments are mature.
Now that The Midnight have contemplated the various monsters that menace developing adolescent brains — adult emotions in a kid’s body — they’re ready to dive into discussions of our contemporary experience.
Your 20s, 30s, and beyond have even grander decisions that carry sometimes everlasting consequences that we wear on our backs like a sack of bricks; but they’re also a period of great joy and personal discovery. And, naturally, some of that will still be happening online — utopia or not.

McEwan and Lyle are constantly refining synthwave with their gifted songwriting and ambitious sonic exploration such that they’re not really a synthwave act anymore.
Their genre is merely ‘The Midnight’.
Highly Recommended

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01 – 1991 (intro)
02 – America Online
03 – Dance With Somebody
04 – Seventeen
05 – Dream Away
06 – The Search for Ecco
07 – Prom Night
08 – Fire In The Sky
09 – Monsters (feat Jupiter Winter)
10 – Helvetica
11 – Brooklyn
12 – Deep Blue
13 – Night Skies
14 – City Dreams (interlude)
15 – Last Train

All instruments, production: Tim McEwan
All instruments: Tyler Lyle
Guitar: Pelle Hillström, Dan Rockett

BUY IT
www.amazon.com/Monsters-Midnight/dp/B0884B4769