The sweeping emo inflected indie sound of Instant Empire is on display in this grandiose new single "Tiny Flashes"
Denver-based band Instant Empire have released a new single "Tiny Flashes", accompanied by an announcement of their upcoming 4th album, Standing Eight Count. Drawing inspiration from the sounds of indie rock legends like The National, Bright Eyes, The Hold Steady, Death Cab For Cutie, and Manchester Orchestra, Instant Empire's approach to the genre is instantly appealing without being too familiar, driven by personal songwriting.
Describing the album recording process, lead vocalist Scotty Saunders writes "My father died a few months before we started writing songs for this album. Around the one-year anniversary of his death, Sean sent me a demo for what would become Tiny Flashes. At the time, I’d been reading a fair amount about the idea of liminality, specifically the Buddhist beliefs in transference from life-to-heaven. As you'd expect, my dad was on my mind a lot at this time ... and I ended up writing this song from my dad’s perspective during the time he was in transition from life to the afterlife. What would it feel like stuck in transition, holding on to the past? This was my attempt to interpret what that might feel like … I imagined you’d almost feel weightless and not rooted to anything.”
“The song plays around a bit on being suspended between life and death, and in the second verse gets really granular as I imagined what it might feel like for my dad to be suspended with only his thoughts and his memories just cycling on an infinite repeat. I tried to just list out memories he might have and might be cycling through. You have to let go to move on … but I imagined the process of actually letting go here would be awful. Almost unachievable. I imagine there would be more questions than answers as a soul passes through a liminal state --- so that came out in the lyrics.”
“Musically, this song really underwent a metamorphosis. It started out as a really sparse piano based tune when Sean first started writing the music. As we started building out the song, and particularly once Matt came up with the drum parts, it started to sound really muscular. The last element added to this song was Lou’s guitar work, and the bridge solo he lays down here really gave this song so much attitude and vibe. We had no idea this song was going to sound like this when we began. Tiny Flashes serves as a really powerful moment in the larger context of the album, and the music ultimately provided the perfect foundation of urgency for the lyrics.”
Standing Eight Count will be the band’s fourth LP and will be released digitally on March 31, 2023.
.png)
.png)