Preview: Empire of the Sun at Merriweather Post Pavillion on Sept. 4

After an eight year hiatus, Australian duo Empire of the Sun has returned to tour their fourth studio album Ask That God, released in 2024. The pair will perform at Merriweather Post Pavilion this Friday, Sept. 4. Their openers—French music duo Polo & Pan and Mexican electropop band Midnight Generation—will kick off the night at 7:30PM.

Empire of the Sun describes the eight years in between their previous album, Two Vines (2017), and their most recent album, Ask That God (2024),  as time spent rejuvenating and rebuilding their craft so as to enter a new age. When they released Two Vines, the duo had been creating music together for 20 years, and they decided to leave the studio until true inspiration and creativity took hold of them again. The title of the new album Ask That God references this divine intervention: the turning to something, someone, a higher power even, for guidance and answers. The album, and the pair’s artistic process, then, serve as a testament to the need for companionship and camaraderie.

With legendary hits like “We Are The People” and “The Spins” (a collaboration with the late Mac Miller), it seems impossible for the duo to reach the level of fame they held in the early 2010s. Although the album has not exploded into a level of popularity that rivals some of their previous tracks, Ask That God holds onto the core tenets of Empire of the Sun: dreamy technopop tracks that not only get a crowd up on their feet but dancing. So maybe it doesn’t matter if the album is “as good” as those preceding it. The duo created a new sound that remains authentic to their brand, rejecting the growing industry trend to throw together capitalist slop just to sell out another tour. As long as this remains true, the artistry of Empire of the Sun will refuse, unlike other stars, to die out.

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Minhal Nazeer is a junior in the SFS studying Culture & Politics and how to survive a day without napping.