"In Night Riots’ case, I believe they leaned a little closer to pop, but their distinct sounds filled with light synth and Travis Hawley’s unique vocals make their new album inexplicably theirs."
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Must Listen
Review by Emily Marshman
Recommended tracks: “On the Line,” “In the City,” “Talk About It”
As someone who started listening to Night Riots in the summer of 2018, after they’d already established a fanbase and had two EPs and a full-length album under their belt, all of their tracks felt like classics in their catalogue. It’s always difficult when artists experiment with sound, but it’s important to remember that your favorite bands, your favorite artists, can’t keep releasing carbon copies of your favorite songs in their arsenal. In Night Riots’ case, I believe they leaned a little closer to pop, but their distinct sounds filled with light synth and Travis Hawley’s unique vocals make their new album inexplicably theirs.
I have to admit that when I first heard “Tokyo Diamond Eyes,” the first official single off of New State of Mind and the introductory track on the album, I was concerned that the sound Night Riots had evolved into would turn out to be one I was not fond of. Now, however, after quite a few full listens to the album, I’ve decided it’s magnificent – masterful, even. It’s packed with the same amount of emotion as Howl and Love Gloom, but New State of Mind gives us just that. It’s an expression of the lessons one learns when we’re hurt by someone we trust. It’s an attempt to take things as they are, even if they’re not what we want them to be.
“Flashy Love” is one of the most fun, catchy songs on the album and an admission of guilt: he can’t get his mind off the one person it shouldn’t be on. It’s nestled directly between two songs that we’ve already heard from the band, which softens the abrasiveness of the unknown. “Loyal To The Game” is a celebration of passion between two people who really loved and admired each other.
“Talk About It” is one of the most important songs on the album, simply because it’s when he’s started to realize that once it’s over, it’s over. You can no longer control how you’re perceived by someone once you end things with them. Hawley sings, “How you’re feeling now is not up to me / Go ahead and take it all, ‘cause I’m finally free / After all of these apologies I’m over it / I’m broken but I feel brand new.” These lyrics are reminiscent of one of their more popular songs off of Love Gloom, “Breaking Free,” a call-back to its chorus (“I feel violent / Like I’m dying / I feel broken / Maybe I’m just breaking free”).
The instrumental on “In the City” almost distracts us from the message the band are trying to convey, but the lyrics cut through nonetheless: “In the city, I thought I’d feel brand new / In the city, all I think about is you / How do I love so hard but feel so far under these lights that shine so pretty? / In the city,” sings frontman Hawley in a moment of pure, unadulterated vulnerability, expressing something that almost all of us have experienced at one point in our lives – the need to feel distracted. When something hurts, we’re almost always going to try to hide from it, to bury ourselves, busy ourselves with friends and lust and work, but in the end, the only thing that will make us feel less lonely is to confront our own loneliness and unhappiness.
“Colour Morning” is a song about regret and about change: “Kaleidoscoping all around the room / Excited by the shape of you in bloom / We were never ordinary / And I know you saw it too / When you look at me I looked right back at you.” A beautiful love song told in an untraditional way, “Colour Morning” is full of a yearning for how things used to be. “Not Too Late” reminds us to talk, to express what we feel and to not keep it inside, because keeping it inside is how bad feelings fester, and expressing how we feel can lead to even more important things coming into our lives. We just need to keep an open mind.
Night Riots have been out of the game since their last tour in early summer 2018, vacating their socials and showing fans nearly no sign of life. Now they’re back with a bang. New State of Mind is just the start; their headlining tour to support the album beginning less than a week after its release in Santa Ana. They’re also playing Reading and Leeds Festival in the UK, with a warmup show the Thursday before at Borderline in London. They can be found on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and their website.
