Lightning Bug’s third album, A Color of the Sky, opens with what might be the band’s best track to date. “The Return” begins with restrained drumming and a plaintive, longing guitar line before Audrey Kang’s feathery voice floats in. An orchestral arrangement gradually sweeps in like clouds across a hazy pink sunset. The track shows Lightning Bug at its best: capable of exquisite dreaminess and melancholy that slowly blooms.

Across two previous albums and occasional smaller releases, Lightning Bug has dabbled with a spectrum of different approaches to achieve this result. Their output has been generally compelling but, at some points, confusingly indecisive. This predominantly came from the sometimes-jarring pivot Lightning Bug made between indie folk and shoegaze. The group is most successful when they meld the two together, as on “The Return.”

A Color of the Sky finds Lightning Bug reaching their most fluid and original balance yet. The combination of those sounds forms something more distinctive and entrancing than either of the two polar ends of the band’s sound. Folky melodies and lush, pensive instrumentals happily blend into a dust(er)y slowcore or feed a smeary ambient canvas.

On “Wings of Desire” the band converts gentle guitar picking into another lush slowcore delicacy that rises into a misty and incalculable bridge. The title track wraps a simple acoustic guitar track in sunlit, glowing swells. That orchestral arrangement leads into the album’s end, “The Flash,” which puts those instruments to more concrete, chamber pop meets dream pop purposes.

One of the more distinguishing features of A Color of the Sky is its dynamic capacity. The experimental, ambient incorporation of delay effects and orchestral instruments helps the songs to rise and fall, creating unexpected structures out of what otherwise might be still ruminations.

When Lightning Bug peaks, they fill space with sound in the tradition of dream pop and shoegaze. But the band’s dynamic ebb and flow creates an openness in between those moments where Kang’s voice can shine. Her vocals hold some resemblance to the folk-tinged melodies of The Cranberries’ Dolores O’Riordan but the billowing echoes and languid delivery have more in common with Grouper’s Liz Harris.

Kang, the principal songwriter and creative force of the band, lets her words sit in the back even when there is little instrumentation fighting for attention. Lyrically she drifts through collages of mood and daydreamt thoughts. The words seem put to the music more as an aid in feeling the full sensation rather than the focal point. “A Color of the Sky” supports that idea, intentionally or not, as Kang sings “Words are absurd / and letters cause more pain / so I’ll tell it to you plain / I will always be your friend.”

A Color of the Sky does lean heavier on one or another influence at times though, but only in passing. “September Song, pt. ii” begins as a more decidedly folk track, its extra reverb sounding near what one might expect from Lord Huron. The song’s end, however, pushes reverb and tumbling delays into a rewarding experiment. Likewise, the back-to-back dense rock band arrangements of “Song of the Bell” and “I Lie Awake” move clearly toward shoegaze but avoid the unbending imitation of some of the genre’s staunch revivalists.

More memorable about A Color of the Sky are the pillowy dreamscapes that Lightning Bug form into accessible ambience. Despite being their most cohesive album yet, it may also be their most bold and experimental. A Color of the Sky is a more fully-realized version of what the band has previously hinted at being capable of.

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By Cameron Carr