There is something special about those songs that evoke thought streams of late night drives along lonesome highways. The conversations between driver and passenger seat co-pilot, the exchanges that range from the mundane to the inexplicably existential as the lane markers and center dividers point toward the horizon void of infinite nothingness. Talks of truth, beauty, aspirations and other assorted self-affirmations dot the path like utility lights that cast a glow on the ways forward toward opaque destinations. The range of human emotions serenely pass like the changing surrounding landscapes, as projected dreams cast a glow like the brights from a headlamp that pierces the blinding veils of night.

Between these spaces of understated subtlety and the outright sublime is “One Month” from Portland group Lions of the Interstate. Announcing their forthcoming Strange Moods EP for Braxeling Records, the lionhearted quintet of Ben Alberts, Arturo Diaz, Kyla Henry, Rich Millward and Jeremy Petersen continue to orchestrate a unified sound that stems from a certain sort of honesty of the heart and mind. Something of a sleeper cult phenomenon of the PNW, Lions of the Interstate make music for the roads we travel (both the well known routes and lesser traversed). Their songs unfurl those ruffled Rand McNally scrolls of sentimental cartography, diagraming the intersecting lines of our familiar and the parallel geography that is both fascinating and foreign all at the same time. The Lions make music that stems from those psychic places of indeterminate origins, where personal feelings and fancies surface from the inner cacophony of the unconscious and into the free form stratospheres of sensationalist song.

“One Month” succeeds at feeling both subdued and somehow unhinged in the same breathy delivery. Lions of the Intestate create a holistic ballad like a late night drive that veers wildly off course in pursuit of beauty and blessed slumber. The song yearns for the gift of song, a rustic cantata that transforms into a sleepy affirmation of a beauty queen pirouetting in a half awakened dream state. The group gracefully arranges the instruments in a manners that softly enters and exits the song, rising into a riotous crescendo before cascading into a blissful soft rain of pure sentimentality. The Lions specialize in allowing every chord, note and lyrical expression to have ample room to breathe like melodic whispering winds and wayward breezes that contribute to tonal textures that paint lush murals of candid meanings within the art galleries of the audience’s sensory faculties. The notions of time, place, self, perspectives and more become enraptured in the art of eliciting a bouquet of absolute feeling.

Lions of the Interstate’s Rich Millward provided insights on the new EP and the track “One Month”

The Strange Moods EP was something we occupied ourselves with while Strange Empires was being readied for release.

It’s more of the DIY thing we used to do, demoing different feels and arrangements of songs. It’s less big. It’s dreamier. We went with different instrumentation on some, to complement the album version, in different ways.

“One Month” was a song written one month to the day after my mother, Ruth, died. It had a few iterations until I figured out a 3/4 to 5/4 tempo change. It begs to swell and fade, which the album version does with cello and dynamics.

The EP version is a wild re-interpretation, with dreamy acoustic guitars and piano filling in for lower bass parts. Ben plays some pretty lines on a classical guitar in the background. Lyrically, it’s a beautiful turn for Kyla’s harmonies to shine. The piano does get angry!

The EP afforded us these moments to go a little raw and experimental. And we can’t forget the birds, recorded out in the backyard, the morning after.

Lions of the Interstate’s Strange Moods EP will be available soon via Braxeling Records.