With the help of Aeronaut brewery, Boston-based band The Lights Out will soon release an album on a beer can. Again. The prog-rock outfit worked with the Somerville, Mass. brewery in 2017 on a similar concept, releasing their album T.R.I.P. via a 16-ounce can of beer. This new album, titled Night Vision, comes out on a can of black IPA Aeronaut is calling X-Ray Night Vision.
Once the beer is purchased, users scan its Spotify code with the music service’s app to retrieve “a limited edition of the digital album.” An expanded (aka full) version will be released in hard-copy format, too.
It’s what you’d expect from a band whose live set includes songs synched to wearable LEDs and who claims this new album is “a kaleidoscopic collection of songs that moves bodies across genres and realities” and that it “was written in a parallel universe.”
Clearly someone’s already been hitting the IPA.
Snark aside, the project does highlight the sound-flavor concept, a relationship other companies are starting to explore, too. Aeronaut claims The Lights Out’s new album provided the inspiration for the beer’s ingredients which include Columbus hops and Midnight wheat. Aeronaut’s also a big supporter of music in general, hosting cover-free live-music events every week at the brewery as well as some multimedia events.
The cynic in me wants to write this off as just another marketing gimmick, which it probably is more than anything else. I can say with certainty that it is not the future of the record label. Still, food and beverage companies basing their products off of albums is an interesting concept. For bands, it seems food and bev nowadays provide yet-another marketing opportunity to help them stand out from the thousands of other acts on Spotify and elsewhere.
The album beer is out December 8. The expanded, hard copy of the album drops on January 4.
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