The Midnight - Heroes (2LP) - Blue Translucent Vinyl

Heroes finds The Midnight thinking bigger without losing the neon pulse that made so many of us fall for them in the first place. Released 9 September 2022 on Counter Records, the album closes the loose trilogy that began with Kids and continued with Monsters, shifting the focus from coming-of-age nostalgia to connection and community. It’s a bold, widescreen update of their synthwave roots, and it suits them.

The duo of Tyler Lyle and Tim McEwan has always worked best at the intersection of heart-on-sleeve songwriting and meticulous production. That balance feels even sharper here. McEwan’s drums hit with more heft, guitars sit closer to the centre, and the synths gleam like city lights after rain. Lyle leans into an earnest, unguarded vocal approach that sells the record’s thesis about finding your people after long nights alone. It’s romantic, but not sugary. There’s a little grit in the engine now.

The singles told the story early. Change Your Heart or Die lands like a mission statement, all pounding toms, chanted hooks and a sense of lift-off. It’s the kind of track that makes you picture hands in the air and someone on a mate’s shoulders, and it marks how confidently the band has folded arena rock dynamics into their palette. Brooklyn. Friday. Love. swings in on bright, chiming guitars and a melody that winks at classic 80s pop, but the lyric keeps it bittersweet. The city moves fast, love even faster, and the song catches that glorious ache on a Friday night when anything feels possible. Heartbeat might be the set’s most immediate singalong, built for big rooms but detailed enough to reward headphones. Listen to the synth counter-melodies weaving in and out of the chorus, then the way the rhythm section surges right when Lyle’s voice lifts.

Elsewhere, Heroes stretches its legs. Avalanche snaps from intimate verses into a turbocharged chorus, a club track with a rock spine. The saxophone cameos that have become a Midnight signature cut through the mix like searchlights, not just for nostalgia’s sake but to add a human rasp to all that shimmering circuitry. You can hear the band trusting space more, letting parts breathe and settle before they go for the knockout. It’s the sound of a live-savvy act writing with stages in mind.

Thematically, Heroes lives up to its name. In interviews around the release, they framed it as a record about the ordinary heroes in your orbit, the friends and strangers who keep you going. That intent resonates. After the more solitary mood of Monsters, these songs feel outward-facing, like invitations. The lyrics still trade in late-night imagery and concrete details, but there are more open arms, more choruses built to be shouted with others. It’s not a pivot away from synthwave so much as an evolution of it, one that acknowledges the last few years and hangs onto hope.

As a studio document, it’s tight. McEwan’s production remains crisp and cinematic, with drum programming that slams without smothering the vocals. The guitars are tasteful, rarely showy, and the synth design is gorgeous. Hooks stick. Bridges pay off. You can tell they sweat the small stuff, right down to transitions between tracks, which makes Heroes a proper front-to-back listen rather than a playlist of singles.

If you collect The Midnight vinyl, this one feels essential. The songs’ breadth and low-end weight make Heroes vinyl a satisfying spin, the kind of record you’ll flip while the arvo light fades. It’s the sort of album you might grab from a Melbourne record store on instinct, then text a friend to come over and give it a run. For those who buy The Midnight records online, it sits neatly alongside other The Midnight albums on vinyl, a clear step in their story and a crowd-pleaser for anyone filing synth-pop next to stadium-sized indie. And if you’re browsing for vinyl records Australia wide, keep an eye out, because pressings of their catalogue tend to disappear fast.

Heroes won’t convert someone allergic to glossy pop, but for the rest of us it’s a rich, open-hearted triumph. The Midnight aim for connection and hit the mark, proving a band rooted in retro textures can still feel urgent, generous and very present-tense. It’s the sound of two artists growing up in public and inviting everyone along.