California rockers Rival Sons have announced that their second new album of 2023, LIGHTBRINGER, will arrive on October 20th. In advance of its release, the band has shared the lead single “Sweet Life.”
The album news comes in the midst of Rival Sons’ current North American tour supporting The Smashing Pumpkins (tickets available here). LIGHTBRINGER marks the follow-up and companion album to Rival Sons’ DARKFIGHTER, which arrived on June 2nd of this year.
Regarding LIGHTBRINGER, guitarist Scott Holiday said in a press release, “When you do two albums back-to-back like this, there are a lot of things to think about. The first record has to pack enough of a punch and tell enough of a story for the second half to have an even bigger impact. We balanced them out with energy and meaning, but the follow-up always needed to deliver a bigger blow. I think LIGHTBRINGER provides this.”
Vocalist Jay Buchanan added, “DARKFIGHTER is a new Rival Sons, and LIGHTBRINGER is the clear definition of what we are now. We broke ground on DARKFIGHTER, but LIGHTBRINGER is a step beyond the personal innovation and exploration. It goes a little further. We really took everything into our own hands and pushed to see how far we could go. It was a self-exploration to see who we were and who we’ll be now. We had more friction and compromise than ever, because we isolated the bare essence of where we needed to go — and then we went there.”
As for “Sweet Life,” Buchanan remarked, “It’s the most old-school Rival Sons song on either of these two records. It has all of the early elements of what Rival Sons is and was. It was born out of my love mid-sixties rock like The Animals, The Kinks, and the bands I was raised on. It’s a bit of a break from all of the heavy subject matter too; it’s a barnburner.”
Check out the lyric video for “Sweet Life” below, followed by the artwork and tracklist for LIGHTBRINGER . Pre-order the album here.
LIGHTBRINGER Artwork:
LIGHTBRINGER Tracklist:
01. Darkfighter
02. Mercy
03. Redemption
04. Sweet Life
05. Before the Fire
06. Mosaic
