3am Smoke by GREENLIGHTS Music

 

3AM Smoke

Almost exactly a year after releasing the audaciously comedic album Solid Gold Gravy, Greenlights Music returns with their 2024 follow up 3 AM SMOKE.

Track one Show Some Love begins in the middle of sweltering summer night with the scene setting cricket chirps, snores and murmurs from within the rented cabin where the lionshare of this album was written.

The group is awakened and alarmed by the sudden blaring beeps of a smoke alarm. They rush outside in a panic and realize one person is still inside.

Bob groggily dismisses the smoke alarm and declares he’s going back to bed.The crickets fade in the distance and a hypnotic melody creeps into the room.

The audience is now soothed back to slumber with the vibrant calming saxophone of Anthony Gomez beckoning them to embrace the concept and lose themselves in what is essentially a dream.

Despite the somewhat abstract premise this conceptually this is the most focused and concise album to date for the Chicago group. The marriage of live instruments and the production of RP creates interesting backdrops for the lyrics and ideas.

Greenlights has been releasing multiple projects a year since the pandemic and are as comfortable onstage as they are in the studio. The group seems uninterested in the limit.

CASAGROWN and Willow Wells contribute unique and hauntingly memorable hooks to "3AM Smoke," infusing the track with playful vibes that seamlessly shift to darker tones and subjects.

The songwriting appears to eschew conventional themes and instead prompts the audience to embrace large and abstract notions regarding politics, societal constructs, and ostentatious consumerism.

While there is an obvious theme of time in almost every song the album embodies the continuity of a lucid dream. With natural but sometimes drastic shifts in tone and subjectivity.

Transforming from the bark of a dog to random television commercial noise pouring into an empty room.

This is the sound of a group arriving and growing into their own. Recognizing their strengths and showcasing the intuitive nature of their creativity. 

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