Band:	The Night Flight Orchestra
Album:	Give Us The Moon
Style:	Hard rock
Release date:	January 31, 2025
A review by:	omne metallum

01. Final Call (Intro)
02. Stratus
03. Shooting Velvet
04. Like The Beating Of A Heart
05. Melbourne, May I?
06. Miraculous
07. Paloma
08. Cosmic Tide
09. Give Us The Moon
10. A Paris Point Of View
11. Runaways
12. Way To Spend The Night
13. Stewardess, Empress, Hot Mess (And The Captain Of Pain)

I'd give you the world if I could. The moon, stars, and all the suns in the universe. Anything for you, my heart.

Everyone's favourite air crew are back and aiming higher than ever before, beyond the skies and into the stars with their seventh album Give Us The Moon. The Night Flight Orchestra's shimmering, synth-driven upbeat pop rock is once again ready to wiggle its way into your playlists with songs that will have you singing along, dad dancing and humming them long after the album has finished.

Building a career and solid reputation off of a stellar live show, plus songs that will make even the quiet, corpse-painted kvltist glowering in the corner throw up their hands in the air and dance like a drunk uncle at a wedding; The Night Flight Orchestra don't do bad times. Give Us The Moon is no exception, with a solid set of songs that will have you bopping along and forgetting about, well, everything. From the shimmering synth-led tracks like opening "Stratus" to the Toto worship of "Runways", the band have variety, but they remember to keep one thing constant, that is to keep things fun.

Where Give Us The Moon hits its stride is when it locks into, what I like to call, its 80s TV opening montage moments: songs that sound like they could play over the opening credits of some obscure TV show lost to this time period. "Miraculous" has the pomp and ABBA influence, while "Like The Beating Of A Heart", "Shooting Velvet" and the title track have that made-for-TV movie feel nailed down. The key to this is the performance of Lönnmyr, with his keyboards the central component to these tracks, and often the separating factor between a good and great song, either employing traditional piano parts a la "Shooting Velvet" or layering shimmering synths in "Stratus".

While it has several aces up its sleeve, Give Us The Moon plays with a weaker hand than the band's previous releases; it will certainly win you over and earn its plaudits, but it isn't the flush that fans have been dealt by the band before. The cards are there, but this time they just don't amount to a winning combination as often here; this is perhaps best demonstrated by the jangly "Cosmic Tide", and it just not clicking despite having the component pieces to make a great song.

While the band aim higher than ever before, the results don't reach the cosmic heights for which they are reaching. Give Us The Moon is certainly an enjoyable album, one that will give you plenty of reason to replay it, and is likely to rank decently in terms of albums released this year, but for The Night Flight Orchestra's high standards? It's one their more average efforts.