Singer/songwriter Coyle Girelli shines with an irresistible glow on his third album ‘Museum Day,’ basking the warmth and wonder of New York City while turning life’s everyday moments into everlasting memories.
for fans of The Smiths, The Cure, The Strokes, The Killers
Stream: “Museum Day” – Coyle Girelli
Coyle Girelli has been a favorite of our pages ever since he debuted his solo project in 2018, but even he agrees there’s something different – something special – about his third solo album. It’s like the British singer/songwriter has been reborn and revitalized; like he’s fallen in love all over again, but this time it’s not with a person, but rather, a place: The city he calls home.
Girelli is unleashed like never before on Museum Day, a radiant record inspired by and dedicated to his adopted hometown of New York City. From singing karaoke on dive bar stages and surfing through packed subway trains, to seeing the lights go out in Central Park and waltzing down Bleecker Street at 5 in the morning, Museum Day is a dreamy record of reverie and reconnection: A bold, buoyant album basking in the beauty of those everyday moments that turn into everlasting memories.
Oh Brooklyn baby, lullaby
You’ve been causing trouble
sincе you caught my eye
What a weird sensation
I don’t know why
But I wanna taste it almost every night
It’s a little sour, it’s a little sweet
Singing karaoke on a dive bar stage
When it’s happy hour
You never miss a beat
Oh let’s go surfing on your sugar wave
I want to go out
Anywhere with you
It don’t matter where we go tonight
It don’t matter where we go tonight
– “Museum Day,” Coyle Girelli
Independently released October 27, 2023, Museum Day is an intoxicating, irresistible ten-track enchantment. The follow-up to 2022’s sophomore album Funland is a bright, smile-inducing indie rock seduction that shines with the dusty glow of The Smiths, The Cure, and First Impressions-era The Strokes.
Formerly the frontman for British rock bands Your Vegas and The Chevin, Coyle Girelli has found his voice as a solo artist over the past five years, crafting stunning balladry with a classic rock-and-roll sound that leaves audiences enraptured and in awe of his lyrical and vocal talents.
In premiering his debut album Love Kills in 2018, Atwood marveled at how Girelli “brings us face-to-face with heartbreak, challenging us to feel real feelings as the artist strips to a vulnerable and terrifyingly fragile state.” Whereas Love Kills was a dark and turbulent affair, 2022’s Funland was a colorful and brighter, yet nonetheless turbulent affair. “One gets the sense that this is the light not at the end of the dark tunnel, but in some kind of middle – a hole through which you can pop your head, but not the whole body,” we wrote in last year’s review. “Nonetheless, Girelli soaks in this emotional nectar far all its worth, taking the opportunity to feel good and project that good feeling out through song. Ultimately, Funland is just that: A welcome escape, if only for a little while.”
This moment of unapologetic musical (and metaphorical) light has very clearly been years in the making, and we’re so glad it’s finally upon us. Girelli has blossomed, embracing the sonic sunlight on his third studio album, capturing an insatiable warmth in sound and song as he sings about living in the moment, cherishing the little things, the beauty of love and the pain of its loss, and so much more.
“Museum Day is a broader, more contemporary natural progression,” Girelli says, comparing his new release to first two records. “I really feel like I’m hitting my stride as an artist. It’s been a minute since I’ve felt like this. I feel like I did when I was 16 again. I’ve fallen back in love with music and making music. There were a couple of years when it just didn’t feel the same to me when I was writing music for other people. I’ve reconnected to myself and my artistry and excited for this album and all the things coming next.”
Girelli explains that Museum Day came together effortlessly and organically in a very short space of time at the start of 2023.
“I had written what I thought would be my new record towards the end of 2022 and was all set to start recording it,” he tells Atwood Magazine. “There was something bothering me about it, however, and I continued to write and tinker until almost by accident I wrote the song ‘Museum Day’ one afternoon the week I was supposed to start recording drums.”
“In the writing of that song, I suddenly saw and felt what this new record should be. I scrapped the entire record I had already written and set about writing a new one, which I did in a very short space of time. I would demo and work up as much as I could in my studio at home, then take them into Restoration Sound in Brooklyn, where I would work on them with Lorenzo Wolff.”
“We didn’t overthink it,” he adds. “The songs led the way and before I knew it the album was finished. I barely had a chance to sit with them, which is fun ’cause the album feels fresh and new to me as well as everyone else.”
Girelli’s music has been leaning more and more into heartland rock – that genre spearheaded once-upon-a-time by folks like Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, and Bob Seger, and continued into the 21st Century through bands like The Killers, Lord Huron, and The War on Drugs in more recent years. To put it even more bluntly: If you were a fan of Sam’s Town and The Killers’ latest album Pressure Machine, then Girelli’s new album is absolutely up your alley.
Funland dipped its toes into that world, and now Museum Day dives headfirst into the deep end of those impassioned, cinematic arena-ready waters. Forget Mercury Lounge (the 250-cap venue in the Lower East Side where Girelli will play early next year) – these songs are ready to ring out in vast chambers like Webster Hall, Terminal 5, and Brooklyn Steel. Even when he’s dwelling in darker emotions (as he does throughout this record, especially in songs like “Nobody” and “I Tried to Love You”), Girelli finds his inner light and lets it shine.
5AM on Bleecker Street
Taxi cabs and ketamine
Feels like now I never see the moon
Think I lost your recipe
You never saw the best of me
I’d let you in but you broke my key in two
When all the lights went out in Central Park
And I feel nobody, I feel nobody
Looking for me inside the sprawling dark
I feel nobody, I feel nobody
Say goodbye or say hello
Lying in the afterglow
Funny how you get so low
One day yours, the next I’m not
Want it all, then not a lot
You used to call and then you stopped
– “Nobody,” Coyle Girelli
He describes Museum Day as honest, instinctive, and “definitively New York City.”
The album title comes from the song of the same name, whose spirited, spunky energy kickstarted the whole thing.
“I often name my albums after the song that I feel best pins it together,” Girelli explains. “The song really was the cornerstone, and the first I wrote for it. I messed around with album titles for a while when I was finished the recording and kept coming back to ‘Museum Day.’ It was the only one that felt right to me. And it was the original name for it that I had scrawled across my whiteboard during the writing process.”
Highlights abound throughout Museum Day as Girelli takes us on a guided tour of his New York. Catchy and unapologetically upbeat, the Smiths-y opening track “Jane Tells a Lie” is an instant standout – a ray of musical sunlight that radiates like a sweet summer day spent lolling with your lover on the Great Lawn. The cheerful, carefree “Museum Day” is another easy and obvious favorite, as is the slower, seductive love-soaked ballad “Swim” (which Girelli poetically describes as an “ode to a beautiful pair of eyes”) and the invigorating Springsteen-esque anthem “Between Us” – one of two driving love stories that help give the album its romantic edge.
And the city weeps
And the city streets
Are cold and aching
Modulating on a different floor
Hold my heart one more time
Oh, what’s the use in truth tonight?
Oh, Jane tells a lie
And nothing really matters anymore
Oh, Jane tells a lie
And nothing really matters anymore
“I’m very proud of so much of it,” Girelli says when asked about his own personal highlights. “There are moments and layers in there that I think people will find the more they listen to it. I love that about it. There’s an openness and rawness to it, but there’s also a lot in there to discover. I love every song on here. I think this is my best record to date. Time to get writing the next one to better it.”
On the topic of favorite lyrics, he notes, “There’s a few in here that I really like. The opening lines from ‘The Girl’ – ‘Falling into the whiskey like a Basquiet left in the rain, the colors run and there ain’t no one gonna get me on my feet again.’ I love the imagery here and the picture it paints right at the top of the song.”
“In ‘Nobody’ there’s some that hit pretty hard,” he adds. “It’s a song about loneliness and losing people and connection. ‘I think I lost your recipe, you never saw the best of me. I’d let you in, but you broke my key in two.’ This line in verse two says so much without saying a lot: ‘You used to call and then you stopped.’”
As charming as it is emotionally charged, Museum Day is ultimately a soul-stirring celebration of life, love, and NYC.
By the time Girelli get to the album’s softer, (bitter)sweet ending – the achingly vulnerable “I Tried to Love You,” followed by the gentle, acoustic heart-on-sleeve homage, “New York Rain” – we’re just about ready to hop a flight to JFK (or the newly revamped LaGuardia!) for a week of soul-searching and limitless city slicking.
And maybe – if there’s time – a day dedicated to the museums. After all, who can resist the allure of the Moma, the Guggenheim, and the Met?! (Personally, I’d add in a visit to the Museum of the City of New York, off 5th Avenue between 103rd and 104th Streets, as well. Just a thought!)
“I hope listeners see themselves in these songs,” Girelli shares. “See their own stories, their own memories, their own lives in here. It’s their record now. Not mine. I hope it becomes a part of their own personal museum day.”
Prepare to bask in the beauty of the Big Apple and get drenched in the sweet New York rain, courtesy of an artist fully invested – and in love with his surroundings. Experience the full record via our below stream, and peek inside Coyle Girelli’s Museum Day with Atwood Magazine as he takes us track-by-track through the music and lyrics of his third album!
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:: stream/purchase Museum Day here ::
:: connect with Coyle Girelli here ::
Stream: ‘Museum Day’ – Coyle Girelli
:: Inside Museum Day ::
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Jane Tells a Lie
The album opener is a jangly Smiths inspired tune about betrayal and lies. It has a fun upbeat vibe despite its more melancholy meaning. Dance away the sad.
Museum Day
This one was the cornerstone of this record which is why I named the album after it. It took me a minute to figure out how I wanted this album to sound. Once I wrote “Museum Day,” everything else made sense and I wrote the rest of the album within a few weeks. “Museum Day” is a feeling. A moment. Be it momentary or infinite. I set it in my hometown of New York City. A perfect day with a little trouble sprinkled on top.
Swim
This one is an ode to a beautiful pair of eyes.
So Predictable
I tuned the fuzz pedals on and turned the amps up. This is probably the most ’90s influenced song on the record. It explores the narcissistic and shallow characters in our lives. I set it in Los Angeles fittingly. It’s a parade.
Between Us
A driving love story about a love that never leaves. No matter the distance. A little bit New Order, a little bit War on Drugs, a little bit The National. Half Manchester. Half New York City.
Real Love
This one I wanted to strip down and keep it as dry and real as I could but with the full band playing. The band did a killer job. I love how it came out. It really set a tone that I’ve been in ever since.
Nobody
“Nobody” is an exploration of loneliness. Set in the middle of the one of the busiest places on earth surrounded by people. Even there, there are moments when we all feel lost and disconnected. It’s that that I was exploring in this song.
The Girl
Another driving ode to a girl in New York. I had fun with this one exploring sounds and ways to keep the song subtly lifting and dropping while musically not changing much. Giving it dynamics with just a nudge here and there.
I Tried to Love You
I wrote and recorded this one so quickly I barely remember anything but the mixing. I played with my voice here in a way I’ve never used it before. Softer. Closer. Restrained. Like with a lot of the songs on this album I purposely stopped my voice from going when it often wants to – those big almost operatic moments. I kept it bottled. Made it work harder for those moments. And no more so than in this song.
New York Rain
A true story.
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:: stream/purchase Museum Day here ::
:: connect with Coyle Girelli here ::
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© Shervin Lainez
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