Eyelids’ new album, A Colossal Waste of Light, does an excellent job of framing the quintet as one of today’s most compelling purveyors of lopsided guitar pop workouts and earworm-laden vocal melodies. It also proves that great guitar pop can still evoke favorites from a glorious past – the penetrating moodiness of XTC’s Black Sea, or R.E.M.’s Fables of the Reconstruction, comes to mind – while refusing to waste time on idle nostalgia.

On their 4th full-length album (but 17th vinyl offering if you include previous 7â€s and EPs) the Portland, OR band also rediscover the beauty of firsts. A Colossal Waste of Light marks the first time the band wrote songs remotely (â€it ended up being fun & weird to send out a very simple version of a song and see who came back first with another part for itâ€, John Moen looks back), their first reunion at the Destination: Universe studio post-isolation, and their first batch of melodious new tunes since The Accidental Falls, the band’s 2020 project with poet, lyricist and Tim Buckley collaborator Larry Beckett (an extra-ordinary pairing that allowed Eyelids’ two frontmen/tunesmiths, Chris Slusarenko and John Moen, to find a new, multilayered appreciation for the art of songcraft). Pressed on Clear with Purple Smoke color vinyl.