In 2021, the minimalist indie rocker Lael Neale released Acquainted With Night, her first album for Sub Pop. Last year, Neale followed that album with the standalone single “Hotline,” and now she’s announced plans to release her second Sub Pop LP Star Eaters Delight this spring. Neale recorded the album with longtime collaborator and Entrance mastermind Guy Blakeslee, and she wrote the album’s songs after leaving LA and moving back to her parents’ farm in Virginia.

Today, Lael Neale shares the Star Eaters Delight opening track “I Am The River.” The track isn’t long, but it conjures a spacey, hypnotic feeling that evokes the Velvet Underground and Stereolab. Neale sings with a strong, detached voice over pulsing drums, droning organ, and flinty guitar notes. There’s majesty in its restraint.

In the album’s Bandcamp description, Neale says:

Acquainted With Night (recorded in 2019, and released in 2021), was a focusing inward amidst the loud and bright Los Angeles surrounding me. It was an attempt to create spaciousness and quiet reverie within. When I moved back to the farm, I found that the unbroken silences compelled me to break them with sound. This album is more external. It is a reaching back out to the world, wanting to feel connected, to wake up, to come together again.

Below, listen to “I Am The River” and check out the Star Eaters Delight tracklist.

TRACKLIST:
01 “I Am The River”
02 “If I Had No Wings”
03 “Faster Than The Medicine”
04 “In Verona”
05 “Must Be Tears”
06 “No Holds Barred”
07 “Return To Me Now”
08 “Lead Me Blind”

Star Eaters Delight is out 4/21 on Sub Pop.