Ten Million Lights Photo credit: Lance Hofstad
Portland shoegaze outfit Ten Million Lights return with their newest single, “Hit The Floor,” a propulsive and emotionally charged track that blends woozy guitars, reverbed-out vocals, and the band’s signature collision of beauty and noise.
The Portland Mercury has described the group’s sound as “noisy dream-pop and psych-tinged shoegaze,” while The Big Takeover praises them as “a highly-developed post-punk maelstrom.” “Hit The Floor” continues to push that sonic aesthetic forward, pairing hypnotic rhythm with an unsettling thematic core.
Elevating the track’s immersive sonic depth, “Hit The Floor” was mixed and mastered by London engineer James Aparicio, renowned for his work with Spiritualized, Mogwai, The Telescopes, The Stargazer Lilies, and New Age Healers.
At the heart of the song is a real-life trauma: vocalist Ryan Carroll’s entire family was caught in a mall during a shooting. Separated and unaware of who was safe, the moment left an imprint that resurfaces through the track’s swirling chaos and emotional weight. “Hit The Floor” confronts the growing epidemic of American gun violence through a deeply personal lens—capturing the disorientation, terror, and sense of helplessness that accompany not knowing whether the people you love are okay.
Lyrically, the song wrestles with the mythology of How the West Was Won, examining how narratives of heroism and frontier bravado unravel under the reality of modern violence. The result is a soundscape steeped in disillusionment, its haze giving way to something raw and unvarnished beneath the distortion.
Ten Million Lights, consisting of Ryan Carroll (vocals), Eric Block (guitars), Russ Ellis (bass), and Paul Hardie (drums), have built a legacy in the Cascadia shoegaze scene with their epic psychedelic textures, cathartic melodies, and visceral live performances. Formed in 2010 by longtime collaborators Carroll and Block after the dissolution of their earlier band Saturna (following a West Coast tour with Bob Mould), the group has since released three LPs and numerous EPs, continually expanding their sound and deepening their intensity.
Beyond the music, the quartet embraces a full DIY ethos—constructing their own rehearsal space, custom recording gear, a light show, and even a limited-edition run of handmade guitar pedals tied to their latest releases. Their 2023 full-length Into Nothing showcased a band at its heaviest and most immersive, and “Hit The Floor” from upcoming LP of the same name, builds on that momentum while charting a darker emotional terrain. The new LP will be released March, 13th 2026.
With its driving pulse, swirling guitars, and thematic urgency, “Hit The Floor” stands as one of Ten Million Lights’ most powerful statements to date—an unflinching, atmospheric reflection on fear, disillusionment, and the fragility of safety in modern America.
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