There’s something inherently intriguing about a record called Midnight Summer. The title itself feels like a contradiction two ideas that shouldn’t necessarily belong together, yet somehow make perfect sense when placed side by side. For Animal Scream, that contradiction became more than a striking phrase. It became a reflection of the album itself: dark and bright, haunting and comforting, vulnerable and fearless.
“The title on its own felt satisfying to me, so much so I considered Midnight Summer for an entirely different band/project. It’s an incredibly personal album and after reflecting on the themes and my experiences it felt like the cozy correct note.”
Written alone on a porch late at night, Midnight Summer grew out of the quiet moments when the rest of the world begins to slow down. But for Animal Scream, nighttime isn’t necessarily silent. Living in the city on a busy bus line means even those late hours are filled with unexpected sounds, people stepping off buses, dogs being walked, distant laughter, televisions glowing through windows, and the constant rhythm of crickets. Those seemingly ordinary details became part of the environment where the album took shape.
“Life is full of contradictions I suppose and the human experience often requires holding opposite truths at the same time.“
For Animal Scream, the porch became a place to release the experiences of the day and organize the thoughts that followed. There is something intimate about that process, particularly when the music explores ghosts, transitions, and life after death. Rather than forcing those themes into an entirely bleak sonic world, Midnight Summer allows light to exist alongside them. The album has been described as “dark lyricism wrapped in sunny melodies,” and Animal Scream embraces that tension. The darkness and brightness aren’t competing with each other; they’re necessary counterparts. As Animal Scream puts it, they’re like Batman and Joker opposing forces that wouldn’t make sense without each other.
“I live in the city, on a busy bus line that runs late at night into the am. So even a peaceful night out on my porch writing captures the hustle & bustle of drunk folks getting off the bus, people walking their dogs, random laughter, late night TV’s buzzing & glowing in the background. All the while crickets sing in a rhythm that relaxes me. I have experiences throughout my day and on my porch late at night I release them and attempt to organize my thoughts and let them come out to play.
I don’t know how deliberate it was to not sound as dark but it’s an interesting observation. Maybe it’s because I felt like I achieved communicating that kind of cinematic darkness on the first two full lengths. But there’s also plenty of those spirits living there.”
That balance is central to the record’s emotional identity. For Animal Scream, Midnight Summer was an attempt to find beauty within darkness. That search for balance isn’t presented as something easily achieved, either. There’s an admission of constantly looking for the right “flashlight” something capable of illuminating difficult places without pretending those places don’t exist.
Interestingly, one of the album’s most unexpected emotional turns came through “20,000 Nightmares,” the record’s closing track. Inspired by The Twilight Zone episode Nightmare at 20,000 Feet, the song explores the uneasy space between reality, dreams, and an unreliable perception of what is actually happening.
The inspiration came from a genuinely frightening experience. While on a late-night flight, Animal Scream fell in and out of sleep and experienced a dream in which the plane was crashing. The terrifying sounds of the imagined disaster eventually became part of the song itself, with engine noises incorporated into the track’s sound design. Even more fittingly, the song refuses to provide a completely comfortable resolution.
“I approached a lot of the album lyrically in a vulnerable but fearless way. However, the final album track 20,000 Nightmares is a nod to the Twilight Zone episode Nightmare at 20,000 feet, which essentially is the story of sanity vs reality of an unreliable narrator. I was on an airplane late at night falling in and out of sleep and I woke up within the dream and there were loud scary movie sounds happening and the plane was absolutely going down and I was really afraid.
When I finally woke up prior to the crash I was in a cold sweat, confused and unsure of my reality. I thought it’d be fun to bake those unnerving engine noises into the sound design of the track with an ambiguous ending unclear if the narrator survives. Since I rarely remember my dreams it was a genuine moment of fear and really the only time on the record I recall that focuses on that kind of emotion. Since it’s the only time I explore that universal “Fight Or Flight” emotion it feels like an appropriate ending to the song, story and album but perhaps that’s just the Sopranos fan in me.”
The ending leaves the listener uncertain about whether the narrator actually survives, allowing the fear to remain unresolved. Animal Scream describes it as the only point on the album that truly explores that universal fight-or-flight response, making it an appropriate conclusion not only to the song but to the album as a whole. It’s a fitting final chapter for a record built around contradictions.
Where much of Midnight Summer approaches vulnerability with fearlessness, “20,000 Nightmares” introduces something more primal: uncertainty, panic, and the terrifying inability to distinguish reality from imagination. Yet even that darkness becomes part of the album’s larger search for meaning. And perhaps the most revealing answer comes when Animal Scream is asked what listeners might misunderstand after only one listen. The lyrics.
“I hope they misunderstand the lyrics. That kind of thing is often fun and I’m not great with pristine, clear vocal articulation since I’m more of a vibe singer so I’ll roll with that as my final answer.“
Rather than demanding that every word be perfectly understood, Animal Scream is comfortable letting the voice function as another instrument more concerned with feeling and atmosphere than pristine articulation. It’s a fitting philosophy for an album that repeatedly asks listeners to sit with ambiguity rather than immediately resolve it. Midnight Summer isn’t interested in giving darkness a single definition. Instead, Animal Scream finds warmth in its shadows, noise in its quiet, and beauty in the uncomfortable spaces between opposing emotions. Ultimately, the album feels like exactly what its title promises: a meeting point between two seemingly incompatible worlds, where contradiction isn’t something to solve, but something to live inside.
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