Sub Lights - Half Life EP (2022) Hi-Res

Sub Lights re-enters the music industry after taking a break in order to move to New York City. Their previous project from the 2010s, The Chemistry Set, had a lineup that included members of Polyphonic Spree and Calhoun, with songs mixed by McKenzie Smith (St. Vincent, Midlake). Their song "Into the Light" was featured in the show One Tree Hill and the band toured nationally after being nominated Best New Band by the Dallas Observer. Sub Lights is a new start, with the sounds of the City, along with the challenge of how to make music in new ways as a two-piece, inspired them to put together a small studio, an effort that went into overdrive during the 2020 shutdowns.

"Half-Life" actually started with a songwriting experiment where we challenged ourselves to write at least one song per week for a year, then pared down from those fifty or so. This EP is the first of what will be a three-part project coming from those songs. Then the idea was to transform traditionally-written songs, mostly played on piano or acoustic guitar, into our indie-electronic style. Lyrically, we wanted to try to capture the kind of social melancholy coming out of the pandemic and the Trump years, but then express that in a hopeful way. Like, life is tough and can be really sad, but even then people are amazing and able to find joy by connecting with each other.

Half-Life has multiple meanings as it relates to the EP. It is one of the key lines in Strange New Breed, which has a lot of science-y references. But it also is a way to describe how if you only live in the past or for the future, you miss the present, so essentially it feels like you are only experiencing half your life at any given moment. It’s also about what deep depression feels like. All these missed opportunities, just watching life go by from your bed. Black & White and Rockville are songs about the past. Traffic and Hell’s Kitchen Sink are about living in the moment which is the only time we can experience the full interconnectedness of life, that we are all the same.