Oklahoma City indie heroes Blueprint Tokyo made quite a splash last year, as they unveiled a triumphant and vibrant debut album, ‘Neon Circuits and the Mission of Hope’. Back then, the group’s eclectic rock and pop character served as the fruitful aural background for evocative lyricism and stadium-ready motifs, a quality that we also find in the band’s comeback record, ‘Dark New Days’. It’s a six-track EP that feels cohesive and mature, the work of a project that has landed on its own specific musical formula.
Such a formula is not complex, not obscure: it mainly distils brooding rock features and wider pop melodism, with a blend of distortion and keys that will quite certainly please a big audience out there. ‘Just Repeat Myself’ is the perfect example of such functional dualism, with the track oscillating between guitar-laden, melancholic sections and more polished, kinetic mainstream bits.
Delving deeper into the personal and introspective songwriting ethos that propels ‘Dark New Days’, head honcho Andy Hale explains: “We didn’t sit down to make a record about any one thing. We made six songs that felt true and somewhere in the process realised they were all pulling in the same direction, that in-between space where you’re still moving and you don’t know yet how it lands.” Packed with tons of relatability and empowering lyricism, the EP confirms once again the musical talent that surrounds Blueprint Tokyo.
Recommended! Discover ‘Dark New Days’ now: