Zooming in on the teenage experience I had online in the ‘90s, I’ll just say that the unmeasured moods of adolescence didn’t completely dissolve even as I went down the information rabbit holes that existed long before Wikipedia. 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! Tim McEwan and Tyler Lyle are The Midnight. 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. Instead, the Internet has largely connected us on superficial levels at best, or degraded society at worst. 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. Its Pure Moods-style new age vibe pulsates with a hypnotic catchiness in a dark, monitor-lit bedroom at 3 a.m.
Album the midnight days of thunder full#
“America Online,” a single from 2019, is the first full song following the intro. It’s not a stretch to refer to Monsters as The Midnight’s Pet Sounds.įrom 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. With that in mind, Monsters is best heard as a whole. The result is an extraordinary body of songs and instrumental segments that form a true, full-album experience. On new album Monsters (Counter Records) - 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 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. The Midnight are supremely talented at building entire worlds on a bedrock of universal themes and eminently catchy hooks.