The Big East built their name on rootsier material, enough to land a Canadian Folk Music Award nomination, but “Shiny Satellites,” out July 16th, is a genuine gear shift. The Huntsville, Ontario band describes their usual sound as “Cottage Rock,” and here they’ve folded that identity into shimmering synthpop and driving pop rock, aiming for something that splits the difference between Bleachers-style arena hooks and The War on Drugs’ more atmospheric pull.
To me, this song sounds incredibly romantic. I had an entire movie montage going through my head as I listened to this song multiple times on repeat: a sweet couple sharing fun moments on a road trip and stargazing together, dreaming about possibilities and wondering what the world holds for them, and knowing that no matter good or bad, they’ll be alright as long as they’re together. That’s how rich the music is here; it activated a very imaginative part of my brain.
What’s interesting is that the band’s own account of the song’s origin points to something a little different: a childhood memory of lying in the backyard with a parent, tracing satellites across the night sky rather than a romantic one. Both readings work, though, and that’s really a credit to how the song’s imagery operates. Space, satellites, and stargazing are broad enough as symbols that they can carry a specific personal memory and a projected romantic fantasy at the same time without either reading feeling forced. The song isn’t overly literal about which one it means, which is exactly what leaves room for a listener’s imagination to run somewhere the writer didn’t necessarily intend.
Musically, the track backs that flexibility up. The synths give it a sense of scale that pushes the song toward the anthemic, festival-ready end of things, while the underlying rhythm keeps enough forward motion to make it work equally well as a late-night drive song or something built for a full crowd singing the hook back. “Shiny Satellites” isn’t trying to pin down one specific feeling so much as it’s building a big enough emotional space that a lot of different memories can fit inside it, and on that front, it clearly succeeds.
