Ask That God


Ask That God is the fourth studio album by Australian electronic music duo Empire of the Sun, released on 26 July 2024 through EMI Music Australia and Capitol Records. The album was preceded by the singles "Changes", "Music on the Radio", and "Cherry Blossom", and also includes their 2023 collaboration with Nick Littlemore's project Pnau, "AEIOU".
At the 2024 ARIA Music Awards, Luke Steele, Nick Littlemore and Peter Mayes were nominated for Best Engineered Release and Best Produced Release.
A deluxe edition of the album was released on 24 January 2025; it features two new tracks.

Background

In November 2016 after releasing Two Vines, the group started working on their new album between late 2016-early 2017 and later announced a hiatus. In April they began recording their new album to be released in 2024, which included recordings that had kept for the past 7 years: from April 3, 2017, to June 26, 2024. It was done by end of June of 2024. Littlemore stated that the duo was "blessed with" the album and that it "represents the greatest shift in consciousness our world has ever seen and that's reflected in the music". The "Ask That God" album, the groups 4th, was released on July 26, 2024. Luke Steele likened the second single "Music on the Radio" to "a teenager rebelling against his imaginary emotions". Littlemore said "There might have been as many as 1,200 songs that we wrote in that time to get to the 12 we have here."

Critical reception

Ask That God received a score of 82 out of 100 on review aggregator Metacritic based on five critics' reviews, which the website categorised as "universal acclaim". Record Collector stated that "while their familiar stargazing disco again dominates, the songwriting is at its sharpest as fresh influences add bite". Neil Z. Yeung of AllMusic wrote that it "feels like both a return to form and a retrospective journey through their sonic evolution" and a "return to the blissful, body-moving spirit of Empire of the Sun's first two classics".
Damien Morris of The Observer said that "like their three previous projects, this one contains at least two elite tunes interspersed with effervescent yet evanescent second-tier tracks and smoothly produced non-bangers ". Ben Hogwood of MusicOMH remarked that Littlemore and Steele "find their familiar chemistry in providing escapism in sun kissed pop to sing and dance to". Lily Blakeney-Edwards of Clash called it "a journey in every sense providing enough density and style changes to keep listeners intrigued to the very end".

Track listing

Note
  • signifies an additional producer

Personnel

Empire of the Sun
Additional contributors