Nostalgia often laments the loss of record stores and rental houses, and memories of cruising the aisles in pursuit of something new. Boston sci-fi pop-rockers The Lights Out miss it, too, but they also made an observation: isn’t that what beer lovers do every weekend?
“Releasing a new album feels like throwing a silver dollar into the ocean of the internet,” says guitarist Adam Ritchie in an e-mail to The A.V. Club. “But people are discovering new and exciting beers on the beer shelf every Friday and Saturday night. We said beer is a format we love, so let’s release this album on a beer.”
How does one do that? Well, find a brewery that loves sci-fi as much as you. After receiving a rough cut of T.R.I.P., a spacey, guitar-forward stomper with intergalactic themes, Massachusetts brewery Aeronaut—home to such beers as Robot Crush and First Thanksgiving on a Sour Planet—created Intergalaxyc T.R.I.P., an imperial India session ale that the brewery describes as “adventure fuel for a journey between dimensions.”
No, the album doesn’t echo from the can when you pop the top (though that would be awesome). Instead, drinkers are encouraged to follow directions on the can, which include a special hashtag and a reply “telling them what an alternate reflection of themselves is doing right now in a parallel world” along with a link to the album. The album is only available through the beer, but The Lights Out will do a traditional release in early 2017.
As of now, Intergalaxyc T.R.I.P. is only being sold in the Boston region, but don’t be surprised if this sort of unconventional album release comes to a brewery near you. In an age where pretty much everything is online, ingenuity such as this is becoming more and more necessary for young bands want to get noticed. And, when all else fails, there’s always beer.