Dashboard Chill

On Friday, April 3rd, Smokey Brights are releasing Dashboard Chill, a stripped down, “MTV Unplugged” style live album that follows hot on the heels of the Seattle band’s rhapsodic 2025 full-length album, Dashboard Heat. Recorded over two sold out nights at Seattle’s historic Rabbit Box Theatre, Dashboard Chill captures the band’s first public performance of songs from Dashboard Heat. Whereas the latter is a bombastic, full range rock record, Dashboard Chill peels these songs back to their bare essentials. Forgoing electric guitars and synths for an acoustic guitar and electric piano, the arrangements on Dashboard Chill allow Smokeys’ stacked harmonies, wry humor, and heartbreaking lyrics to take center stage. The raw emotion of this performance, as well as the audience's sincere reaction to these new songs, gives this album a palpable intimacy and energy. An accompanying live concert video shot by Kyle McCarty will be released with the album.

On "Northgate Way (Live from The Rabbit Box),” the release day focus track, the band shares: 

Northgate Way, in north Seattle, is home to several mattress stores, the hollowed out remains of a shopping mall, crows, raccoons, and Kim and Ryan from Smokey Brights. The band first debuted their ode to their neighborhood at The Rabbit Box Theatre with an audience of Seattleites who were definitely in on the joke, as evidenced by the laughs heard throughout. Don’t worry though - every city has its Northgate Way. This song is an exercise in finding the charm in the innocuous and the beauty in the banal. Because everyone has to live somewhere and Northgate Way is ‘fine, I guess.’