Lathe of Heaven

Lathe of Heaven share new single/video "Oblivion" from their new Album 'Aurora' out August 29th via Sacred Bones Records.

Lathe of Heaven's fusion of post-punk and new wave is sonicaly sharp and visually striking. The Brooklyn-based band's upcoming full-length, Aurora, is out August 29 via Sacred Bones, using literary influences to grapple with heady concepts.

This week, Lathe of Heaven share the album's second single, "Oblivion" on which singer Gage Allison imagines a drug that heightens self-existence through a feedback loop.

"Cascade – Familiar and strange – Stirring behind your eyes," Allison repeats over a choppy beat and silvery guitar riffs in the chorus. "Oblivion" is accompanied by a fractured, blue-hued video, which enhances the disorientation.

On the single, Gage Allison of the band shares: 

"Say a word enough times and it begins to lose meaning. This is a phenomenon called semantic satiation and it is the underlying inspiration behind this song.

One day I hope to publish a short story about a drug that, when taken in front of a mirror, triggers a sort of feedback loop which multiplies the users’ sense of self out of existence. Expanding on this, Descartes had an idea that the mind and body were essentially two different things.

And that is how we experience the world – as a subject amongst objects – I don’t believe that this is wrong, I just like toying with the idea of being tricked into experiencing an essential oneness with the universe in a way that binds us in a great link of existence.

Of course, I don’t plan on this story having a sort of happy ending. Framing this concept in this way shouts 'esoteric hippy' but that’s not what I’m going for… When it comes down to it too much of anything is almost always a bad thing and taking this drug will likely have dire consequences.

Not to mention, setting this thought experiment up in this way essentially creates a paradox where the destruction of the mind-body dichotomy creates another dichotomy of experience, consequently reproducing the mode of being the user so happened to evade. Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself... Let’s just say these lyrics are a prequel to this future project."

Video directors Max Rooney and Hank Allen of Fingertrap Productions elaborate: 

"We wanted to match the sci-fi themes of Lathe of Heaven and add our own little twist to it. The song features this idea of losing yourself in your own reflection, we wanted to push that imagery by using mirrors and projectors, which in their own way detach the body from one's own environment."

Lathe of Heaven's second full-length album Aurora, is a bold expansion of their sonic and thematic palette that unfolds like a series of vivid, emotional vignettes.

Rather than following a singular tone or mood, Aurora unfolds like a collection of short stories, each track offering a different lens into the band’s evolving sound and deeply reflective lyricism. Incorporating influences from mid 80s British and Finnish post-punk, combined with subtle nuances from 90s and contemporary underground pop, 

Aurora is an iteration of Lathe of Heaven’s sound previously unexplored, one that offers a delicate balance of their punk roots with captivating new-wave and 80s post-punk aesthetics. Recorded with Ben Greenberg at Circular Ruin and mastered by Brad Boatright, the album sonically is inspired by The Cure’s melodic rock, Musta Paraati’s gothic post-punk synth and intense drumming, and A Flock of Seagulls’ art pop vocals and guitar riffs.

Lyrically, Aurora doesn’t shy away from heavy themes. Envisioned as a collection of sci-fi short stories, it is deeply influenced and lyrically driven by themes of anti-colonialism, diversity, and equality. These stories are inspired by Ursula K. le Guin, Octavia Butler, Greg Egan, and Peter Watts’ novels, leading listeners to mythical, bold, and somewhat unnerving realities. Lathe of Heaven hope Aurora elicits a vast spectrum of emotions, and inspires deeper reflection on the state of our reality and humanity.

Born from improvisation, refined through rigorous thought, and stitched together with raw emotion, the album opener “Exodus” narrates the experience of transferring consciousness into a new, perfect body. Reimagining Theseus’ Ship Paradox, a thought experiment about an ancient ship that is slowly replaced with new parts until none of its original pieces are left, the track trails off leaving us with a Greg Egan quote - “Begin again in blameless flesh.”

The title track “Aurora” turns its gaze towards love at the end of the world. Inspired by Arthur C. Clarke’s short story “If I Forget Thee, O Earth...”, it is set in a dystopian future where Earth is long abandoned due to nuclear fallout, and explores themes of loss, love, and devotion.

“Oblivion” delves into the phenomenon of semantic satiation - say a word enough times and it begins to lose its meaning. Elsewhere, "Portrait of a Scorched-Earth" stands as a direct act of resistance. One of the most emotionally raw songs on the album, it breaks from the band's usual lyrical abstraction as an unflinching reckoning with the horrors of modern warfare and displacement, rooted in the lived tragedy of Gaza.

It is both personal and political, and refuses the silence demanded by complicity. Each track continues peeling back the layers. The disorientation of mental illness in “Kaleidoscope,” the desperate ritual of memory in “Just Beyond the Reach of Light,” and the silent mechanisms of power dissected in “Matrix of Control” and “Automation Bias,” these are songs as concerned with cybernetic feedback loops and algorithmic governance as they are with the erosion of human autonomy. “Catatonia” and “Infinity’s Kiss” plunge into subconscious territory, fusing dream logic with quantum mechanics and foreboding unease. Inspired by the name of the alien ship in a sci-fi novel by Peter Watts, “Rorschach” closes the record with a vision of personal apocalypse.

While sonically rooted in post-punk, gothic rock, and darkwave, the record refuses easy categorization. It is literary without being pretentious, political without preaching, and emotional without flinching. Every song holds a piece of a shattered mirror and what emerges is a prismatic, wounded beauty, staring back with a thousand faces. Set to be released August 29th, 2025, Aurora stakes its claim; "tremble without fear into dreamless oblivion." You are invited.

Photo by Yulissa Benitez 

Tour dates

18/9 - Boston, MA @ O’Briens

19/9 -  Montreal, QC @ L'Escogriffe Bar

20/9 - Toronto, ON @ Collective Arts Taproom

21/9 - Detroit, MI @ Lager House

22/9 - Chicago, IL @ The Burlington

24/9 - Dallas, TX @ Dusty’s

25/9 - Austin, TX @ Elysium - Levitation Fest

27/9 - Joshua Tree, CA @ Thrasher Death Match

28/9 - Los Angeles, CA @ Permanent Records Roadhouse

3/11 - Berlin, DE @ Neue Zukunft

4/11 - Warsaw, PL @ VooDoo

5/11 - Poznań, PL @ Pod Minogą

6/11 - Prague, CZ @Bike Jesus

7/11 - Wien, AT @ Das LOT

8/11 - Trento, IT @ Cs Bruno

9/11 - Bologna, IT @ Improved Sequences Festival

11/11 - Lyon, FR @ Sonic

12/11 - Geneva, CH @ La Sportive

14/11 - Barcelona, ES @ Greetings From Barcelona Festival

15/11 - Madrid, ES @ The 27 Club

16/11- Porto, PT @ Radio Clube do Agramonte (RCA)

18/11 - San Sebastian, ES @ Dabadaba

19/11 - Bordeaux, FR @ DEUS EX MACHINA

20/11 - Paris, FR @ La Mécanique Ondulatoire

21/11 - Nijmegen, NL @ Merleyn

'Aurora'

out August 29th via Sacred Bones Records

Pre-save album here