In 2009, the Australian duo Luke Steele and Nick Littlemore, known together as Empire of the Sun, released their first single, “Walking on a Dream”, which helped them earn the Australian Recording Industry Association Music award for album of the year.
Throughout the band’s run, their electronic, groovy and psychedelic sound has generated an intense number of remixes. Notably Mac Miller sampled “Half Mast” on his hit song “The Spins”.
However, in the last decade the band has been quiet and has not dropped an album since 2016. Then in 2024, Empire of the Sun dropped a song with PNAU, another Australian band, and on July 26, dropped a full album titled, Ask That God.
This is where I come in. As a long-time fan of the band I got really excited when I heard that they had released a new album, so I decided to take a listen, and I couldn’t have been more happy with what I heard.
This album delves deep into emotions associated with change, faith and spirituality while maintaining a lively and groovy tone.
There were about five really amazing songs out of the twelve on the album, which is to be expected because despite all of their hits, every time they drop an album a few songs just fade into the background.
One thing that makes the best songs even more memorable is the band’s music videos.
Empire of the Sun’s videos help the audience to visualize the story of the album and show the Band’s very unique style. Steele and Littlemore garner an intense amount of attention due to their very unusual outfits.
The band members wear outfits inspired by mythology of sun-worshipping cultures as well as channeling a certain sci-fi feel inspired by movies such as The Holy Mountain and Blade Runner.
On this album it seems like Empire of the Sun is giving us more of these videos and more of these crazy outfits. At one point during the video for “Cherry Blossom” we see Luke Steele wearing a huge pink robe with golden accents and this crazy intricate crown covered in jewels.
Empire of the Sun has continued to innovate in many ways, through their distinctive look and the way they advertise their music.
The band has a phone number that fans can call and listen to the album. When a new music video drops, the band sends a message talking about the video to fans who call the number. It’s pretty cool.
I have found most of the new albums to be great. Songs that really stand out to me include “Changes”, “Television” and “The Feeling you Get”.
Although the themes of these songs are hardly unique, the band’s take on these topics makes each song feel fresh.“Changes” for example, is about how everyone goes through changes and how they make us stronger, which is a rather simple theme, but with Luke Steele’s vocals, the sci-fi looping beat, and the extremely groovy tone, it becomes elevated to something no other artist has done before.
Every one of these songs is incredibly layered in meaning. That is to say, this is probably one of the most creative albums I have ever had the pleasure of listening to. If you want to experience the next best thing in the history of music and delve into the layers of spirituality and emotion, this album is for you.
