Music / Neonfly

Princes of freedom

Blaze into oblivion

Eyes gleaming

The sons of perdition

Killed the dream of Eden

Stained crimson

They'll never stop me now

We're the wrath of god

—"Heart of the Sun"

Neonfly are a melodic power metal band based in London, England. Founded in 2007 by guitarist Frederick Thunder, the band currently consists of vocalist Willy Norton, guitarists Thunder and Andy Midgley, drummer Boris Le Gal and bassist Paul Miller. The name has no clear origin, as Thunder tends to answer questions about it either obliquely or sarcastically. To date, they've released one EP (Clever Disguise in 2008), two albums (Outshine the Sun in 2011 and Strangers in Paradise in 2014) and four videos (A Gift to Remember, Better Angels, Highways to Nowhere and Heart of the Sun, the last of which was a lyric video).

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Albums:

• Outshine the Sun (2011)
• Strangers in Paradise (2014)

Current members:

• Willy Norton on vocals
• Frederick Thunder & Andy Midgley on guitars
• Boris Le Gal on drums
• Paul Miller on bass guitar

Former members:

• Patrick Harrington (2008 - 2014) on guitars
• Tamás Csemez on vocals
• Nick Tingle on drums

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They provide examples of:

• Badass Boast: "We're the wrath of god" from Heart of the Sun.
• Conspiracy Theorist: On I Think I Saw a UFO, the final track from Outshine the Sun, Willy Norton sings from the point of view of a conspiracy theorist who is convinced that Elvis was abducted by aliens ("I know they're green, I know they're fast/I know that Elvis is alive/They took him more than twenty years ago")
• Deadpan Snarker: Thunder has his moments.
  Interviewer: Where does the band name come from? Who came up with it?
  Freddy: I came up with the band name as a silent protest after realizing Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark was already taken.
• Keet: Norton. Just watching him can be exhausting. Amidst all the general running and jumping around he likes to do, he also enjoys climbing on the stage rigging. While still singing. He usually seems pretty fidgety during interviews, too.
• Large Ham: Seeing as how they're a power metal band, it comes with the territory.
• Mind Screw: The video for ''A Gift to Remember''. It features a woman who keeps seeing the band members appearing in and around her house, but it's heavily implied that she's hallucinating them.
• Motifs: On Outshine the Sun, Flying Saucers. There's one on the album cover, they reappear in the CD booklet, and there's even a song about them (I Think I Saw a UFO) on the album.
• Multinational Team: Norton is Irish, Thunder is Mexican-French, Le Gal is French, Miller is from the Channel Islands and Midgley is from England. Former guitarist Patrick Harrington is Irish-Filipino, and former vocalist Tamas Csemez is Hungarian.
• Performance Video: Three of their four videos so far - namely A Gift to Remember, Better Angels and Highways to Nowhere - are, at least in part, performance videos. A Gift to Remember is sort of a cross between a Performance Video and a Concept Video: shots of the band performing the song intersect shots of a woman who may or may not be hallucinating seeing the band members in her house. Better Angels and Highways to Nowhere are more straightforward performance videos.

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