NIGHT SHOP - Forever Night LP

Highly recommended.

We first introduced you to Night Shop in 2018 with the release of 'In The Break' featured in a newsletter. We've sold many a copy of that cracking slice of Jonathan Richman-inflected breezy indie-pop.

"The latest signpost on this journey is a record that begins with the titular song, moving with the jacked-up pace of a long forgotten power pop anthem being hummed on a city avenue outside the late night cafe. As Sullivan puts it, “It’s a song about feeling grateful and inspired by the pace and lessons of the city and the pace and lessons of getting to experience a life spent playing music.” From there the album flows through various sonic moods and tones, while the lyrics invoke literary themes and imagery, like a back-pocket paperback brought to an all-night diner where an old jazz standard plays.

‘Let Me Let It Go’ is an exuberant rave-up that sets its early rock-and-roll rhythms and shining horn arrangements to a “meditation on courtly love”, referencing the moment when Dante saw his muse Beatrice in the town square. “A journey to hell, the pursuit of art, the Shangri-Las, and finding peace in what is, not how we think things should be”.

A life spent on the road is reflected in the frequent geographical name checks on the record—from Pensacola to Paris to the New Jersey Turnpike— alongside Sullivan’s jubilance in revealing influences that range from classic film noir to Andrew Lloyd Weber to the seedy underbelly of Old Hollywood to Ani DiFranco.

The disparate influences are held together by common earnestness and even optimism, especially striking when Sullivan is foretelling of certain doom. To wit, “The End of Time” which he says is: “An attempt to capture what it feels like when the world feels like it is cascading towards oblivion and yet, somehow you can still feel such unbridled excitement when you see a certain person walk into the room.” - It's Psychedelic Baby