Lightning Bug have announced their third album (and first on Fat Possum), A Color of the Sky, out June 5. Singer/songwriter Audrey Kang and company have also shared its lead single, “The Right Thing Is Hard to Do,” along with an animated music video.
A Color of the Sky ushers in a new era for Lightning Bug: Not only is it the first album they’re recorded as a live band, but it’s also their first release featuring drummer Dane Hagen and bassist Vincent Puleo, who’ve joined Kang, Kevin Copeland and Logan Miley as full-time members. The resulting music, recorded in “a rundown home-turned makeshift studio in the Catskills,” per a press release, is imbued with newfound depth and dynamism, a testament to Lightning Bug’s growth and cohesion.
“The Right Thing Is Hard to Do” is an atmospheric, guitar-driven ballad, with a gorgeous drone that Kang’s vocals illuminate, like a spotlight shining through the night sky. The song’s reflective lyrics find Kang recalling her idyllic childhood, and the way that reckoning with her emotions grew more difficult as she got older; she connects this rising anxiety to our current political climate (“So they say they’ll build a wall […] And turn away those seeking shelter most of all”), ultimately upholding love over doubt and fear. Lightning Bug’s lush instrumentation intertwines with Kang’s hopeful lyrics, and “The Right Thing Is Hard to Do” as a whole fortifies the spirit, convincing you that a better world is possible.
“Here I wanted to connect how the struggles and flaws within the individual are mirrored in the greater problems of society. How do we as individuals know we are on the right path? How do we as a society, as a species, know we are on the right path?” says Kang of the song. “So I started with myself, and my own struggles, touching on how I hide myself away from other people, on my stage fright, on my inability to be vulnerable, on this feeling I used to have that I needed to prove I was worthy of being alive. Then I tried to connect these struggles outward to global issues like xenophobia, arbitrary borders, the lines we draw between ourselves and the environment, and the ways we sacrifice the health of the planet for human convenience.”
Watch the “The Right Thing Is Hard to Do” video (beautifully animated by Melanie Kleid) below and find the details of A Color of the Sky further down. You can preorder the album here.
A Color of the Sky Tracklist:
01. The Return
02. The Right Thing Is Hard To Do
03. September Song, pt. ii
04. Wings of Desire
05. The Chase
06. Song of the Bell
07. I Lie Awake
08. Reprise
09. A Color of the Sky
10. The Flash
A Color of the Sky Album Art:
