The Mystery Lights

The Mystery Lights story begins in 2004 in the small town of Salinas, California when a group of friends decided to join forces and craft their own brand of unhinged rock & roll. With a shared fondness for groups like The MC5, Velvet Underground, Dead Moon, and The Fall, they began touring relentlessly before migrating to New York City in 2013. They caught the attention of Brooklyn based label Daptone/Wick Records and signed with them. Though a garage punk band at heart, the parallel to what Daptone Records had traditionally looked for in their soul artists was undeniable. The release of their debut eponymous LP lauded them critical mass fanfare. After years of non-stop touring, the group recorded their second full-length album, Too Much Tension! While keeping the hard-hitting approach of the first LP, the group dug deeper into their well of eclectic influences. Mixing eerie, insistent synth sounds, the energy and swagger of punk’s golden age, the pop sensibility of The Kinks, and the stark, deliberate execution of Television, they enriched their sound without echoing the past. Today, The Mystery Lights are taking their idiosyncratic brand of rock & roll to dizzying new heights with their most ambitious release to date, the third and newest album, Purgatory.