Photo by Anna-Marie Trudel.

STEP THROUGH THE NEON GATE WITH NAP EYES

New Album Out Today

 

Welcome, intrepid traveler; step through The Neon Gate. Today you can finally hear the entirety of the wild, fascinatingly kaleidoscopic new Nap Eyes record, their fifth and furthest out long-player, in shops, shipping, and streaming worldwide now.

Today the band has also shared the fifth short visual, for the lead track “Eight Tired Starlings,” as well as a clutch of Spring UK and EU tour dates. Watch the newest (and final?) chapter of guitarist Brad Lahead‘s ongoing adventures in search of the Neon Gate below. 

 

 

 

 

Buy The Neon Gate

$9.00 – $35.00

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In case you missed it two weeks ago, the last transmission from the Neon Gate was “Dark Mystery Enigma Bird.” This disjunctive avian fable told through a stream-of-consciousness narrative provides, with its sun-dappled surreality, perhaps the most immediate earworm melodies and arrangements on the record. Unlike most vocals on The Neon Gate, which were recorded live with the band, songwriter Nigel Chapman recorded his vocals for “Enigma Bird” in a blanket-draped children’s cardboard castle in his parents’ basement.

The single was accompanied by an absorbing, technicolor hand-drawn animated video, as innocent as it is irreverent, created, through a painstaking process, by filmmaker Dr. Cool. It depicts a phantasmagorical tale of a truckload of wild zebras who commandeer the vehicle transporting them and set off on a fantastic adventure in a psychedelic landscape. Watch it below.

 

 

Watch All Videos and Visuals (So Far)

 

FLOOD has filed an observant early album review that captures the album’s technicolor charms, with a surprisingly apt reference to the Fall:

“Nap Eyes’ playful fifth album finds the perfect middle ground between live rawness and a glossy studio sound, as the band packs their mid-fi rock jams with fried guitar solos, electronic grooves, and a genuinely funky adaptation of W.B. Yeats … Miraculously, these contrasting pieces—hip-hop hi-hats and folky guitars, verbose lyrics and ripping solos—come together as a cohesive whole. Their members might not change like The Fall’s did, but the cliché remains: Nap Eyes are always different, always the same.”

 

Nap Eyes Live

The band has announced a Spring 2025 UK/EU tour to follow their already announced April show in New York with MJ Lenderman. More details here via Puschen. Stay tuned for more dates TBA.

 

 

April 30,2025 – New York @ Brooklyn Steel w/ MJ Lenderman
May 7, 2025 – London @ The Lexington
May 11, 2025 – Birmingham @ Hare & Hounds
May 12, 2025 – Manchester @ YES
May 13, 2025 – Glasgow @ The Hug & Pint
May 14, 2025 – Leeds @ Hyde Park Book Club
May 16, 2025 – Brussels @ Les Nuits Botanique
May 17, 2025 – Amsterdam @ London Calling
May 18, 2025 – Utrecht @ Ekko
May 19, 2025 – Rotterdam @ Renée
May 20, 2025 – Köln @ Bumann & SOHN
May 21, 2025 – Hamburg @ Nachtasyl
May 22, 2025 – Berlin @ Schokoladen
May 23, 2025  – Schorndorf @ Manufaktur
May 24, 2025 – Freiburg @ Swamp
May 28, 2025 – San Sebastian @ Dabadaba
May 29, 2025 – Ourense @ Sala El Torgal
May 30, 2025 – Lisbon @ ZDB
June 1 2025  – Valencia @ Loco Club

 

Acknowledgments

Fripp-esque sustain, synths, and drum machines color a beautifully constructed record that brings to mind Aztec Camera’s High Land, Hard Rain or Scritti Politti’s Songs to Remember. – Uncut

The Neon Gate finds Nap Eyes adopting new forms and expanding—these are among Chapman’s most empathetic and charmed compositions yet. – Aquarium Drunkard

A remarkable accomplishment. – Stereogum

Clean, tightly wound power pop that places Chapman’s remarkable talent for lyric writing front and center. – The FADER

Quietly devastating … a beautifully patient reintroduction to the group. – Exclaim!

Slow blooming bliss … worth the wait. – Raven Sings the Blues

Nap Eyes’ musical horizons only continue to broaden, and the vistas are something to behold … they stand on tiptoe as they continue to contemplate amidst their most adventurous songwriting to date. – Northern Transmissions

Nigel’s voice, like a moth to the flame … pulls you into the storytelling. Very few acts are crafting music in this matter, so feel free to raise your glass to these lads. – Austin Town Hall

Masters of subtlety. Nap Eyes have made much ado about meaninglessness with rock ‘n’ roll songs that shake just offbeat and smart lyrics wrapped in bemused ennui.

– NPR Music

Brimming with passion and protest … Immediately familiar, yet bracingly distinct… one the most intriguingly idiosyncratic lyricists this side of Dan Bejar. – Pitchfork

One of the most fascinating songwriters we have today. – Newsweek