I am not a teary person. And upon first glimpse, Black Light Dinner Party doesn’t necessarily come off as a band that would inspire any particular sort of melancholy. So when I found myself becoming shakier and shakier in the middle of a strip mall coffee shop on a sunny Virginia afternoon while streaming “Sons and Lovers,” I was very much taken aback. While on one hand, as their name would hint at, Black Light Dinner Party is concretely electronic rock — a sound that is associated with raves and neon clothes more often than not — “Sons and Lovers “has a heartbeat like pulse in their sound and lyrics that hits a surprisingly emotional chord.
This began to make more sense, as I looked further into the band’s background. Originally forming in Boston, members Zach, Jack, Joel and Dan had just begun making music together in 2011 when Jack’s mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. According to a conversation with Interview magazine, their music began to come together in the wake of her treatment and subsequent passing, creating a bittersweet beginning for the band as they began to find success in the wake of tragedy.
Personally, after having had a summer consisting of back-to-back sudden deaths of close family members, my little coffee shop meltdown seemed less out of the blue as the tone of Black Light Dinner Party hit home with every listen. Not only have these guys created a listenable keep-it-on-repeat kind of sound, but they also have crafted in their Sons and Lovers LP tracks that perfectly capture the tension that occurs between grief and celebration of life. The revelation of an off-color happiness that occurs when we realize that loss does not roadblock how life goes on.
Maintaining a perfect line between the personal and relatable, the members of Black Light Dinner party have brought craftsmanship and soul to a genre of music that is often more smoke and mirrors than anything else. Their debut full-length Sons and Lovers comes out September 24. It’s great. Their so far relatively-low profile career is definitely worth keeping tabs on.