What can we expect from Yellow Days’ new album?
Well hello and welcome to ‘Hotel Heaven’, the new decadent and captivating album from Yellow Days. The highly-anticipated album which drops on April 5th has captured the attention of both the music press and fans alike after the release of the album’s first single ‘Mrs Midnight’.
Yellow Days has harnessed his own unique blend of bold off-kilter psychedelic indie-pop which is teamed with sumptuous soul and seductive funk. Sonically, this feels like Yellow Days has taken the disco funky grooves of Sly Stone mixed with the lo-fi sensibilities of Tame Impala.
But despite the pure danceability of this record by Yellow Days, there’s still a lot of heart and emotional grit in the mix, garnering this record a true uniqueness. Recorded entirely in his flat in East London, Yellow Days AKA George van den Broek also played every single instrument on the album as well as programming the drums.
‘Hotel Heaven’ is Yellow Days’ third studio album and his first since 2020’s ‘A Day in A Yellow Beat’ and his EP ‘Inner Peace’ in 2022. Positioned as a concept album, ‘Hotel Heaven’ spirits you away to an otherworldly, transcendental escape where the jaded and confused decamp to a life of indulgence. There’s Yellow Days’ trademark humour in there with lyrics that tell the story of a matriarchal concierge (who is God like character) who spends her downtime between shifts chain-smoking and typing eviscerating picture postcard portraits of its guests.
Symbolising how people take comfort that is not real and all is not as it seems, as the album develops it’s apparent that there’s more than meets the eye at ‘Hotel Heaven’ and comparisons have been made to ‘The Shining’ and ‘Twin Peaks’ in terms of influence.
In a statement, Yellow Days – aka George van den Broek – says, “‘HOTEL HEAVEN’ represents fake comfort in all its forms, this whole bullshit idea of luxury where nothing is real. I wanted to write about everything that is happening right now – this TikTok age where everyone wants to be famous. It’s also a big 360 of my life and career to date. I wanted to get away from everything I’d done before, wash my face and start afresh.”
Yellow Days and the World of Hotel Heaven
Yellow Days has always operated in a space all his own, and Hotel Heaven makes that clearer than ever. The concept is sharp: a grand hotel where comfort is an illusion and guests trade reality for indulgence. George van den Broek has spoken openly about wanting this record to reflect the TikTok era of performative living, where image outweighs authenticity. That thematic boldness, combined with the hands-on approach of recording and playing everything himself, gives Hotel Heaven a singular intimacy that very few records manage to pull off.
Why the Album’s Influences Make It Worth Your Time
The comparisons to Twin Peaks and The Shining are not just clever marketing. There is something genuinely unsettling underneath the warm grooves and playful lyrics on Hotel Heaven. Yellow Days wraps his social commentary in layers of Sly Stone funk and Tame Impala atmosphere, which makes the record feel celebratory and uneasy in equal measure. The matriarchal concierge character alone is one of the more inventive narrative devices in recent indie-pop. It is the kind of album that rewards multiple listens.
‘Hotel Heaven’ is out on April 5th and you can also catch Yellow Days on tour which includes a landmark London show at KOKO.
