Some venues don’t just host sound; they seem to hold it, like they were built with a specific frequency in mind. Last Thursday, Brooklyn stepped into that space as Cannons transformed Brooklyn Paramount into something closer to a sanctuary than a stage. It felt less like attending a show and more like crossing a threshold. Ethereal gets close, but doesn’t quite land. When Cannons fills a room, it’s not just a performance; it’s atmosphere, it’s immersion, it’s stepping into a world that feels suspended somewhere between memory and dream, glowing softly at the edges.

Hailing from Los Angeles, California, Cannons are often labeled as electro-pop, but live, that definition feels too flat, too contained. There’s something illuminating, almost literal, in the way their sound expands on stage. Synths don’t just sit beneath the surface; they breathe, stretch, ripple outward, carried by live instrumentation that gives everything weight. It’s not just electronic. It’s physical, tangible, something you can feel move through you. Over the years, they’ve built that sound into something unmistakable, earning over a billion streams and landing everywhere from late-night television to major festival stages. But with their latest release, Everything Glows, they’ve pushed that world even further outward, leaning into themes of heartbreak, codependence, fracture, and ultimately, release. It’s an album that doesn’t just shimmer, it radiates.

Released just weeks before their “Afterglow” run with Bob Moses, Everything Glows doesn’t feel like a reset, even in the wake of Michelle Joy regaining her health. It feels more like a realization, something that had always been there, finally coming into full view. At its core, the record is built on trust, on a kind of quiet understanding between the three of them that allows the music to unfold mystically. That sense of closeness bleeds into the songs themselves, which move through the complicated terrain of relationships – the push, the pull, the breaking, the rebuilding – without ever feeling forced.

Take “Carousel,” for example. It spins in place, looping back on itself in that hypnotic way Cannons has mastered, capturing the feeling of being caught in something cyclical – love, heartbreak, memory – until it becomes almost dizzying. It’s intoxicating by design, pulling you in slowly until you don’t realize how far you’ve drifted.

And that drift is exactly what defined their live show.

Cannons is one of those bands you can listen to endlessly, but you don’t fully understand until you’re standing in it. The recordings are pristine, almost glass-like in their clarity, but live, everything softens and expands. The sound wraps around you, echoes off the walls, folds back into itself. You don’t just hear it; you sink into it.

When Michelle Joy steps forward, there’s an immediate shift. Her voice doesn’t demand attention; it draws it in, steady and effortless. For the full hour she holds center stage, there’s no breaking that connection. It’s not just presence, it’s gravity. The kind that keeps you suspended, like you’re floating just slightly above where you started.

And when the instruments take over, it’s like slipping deeper underwater. Time stretches. Details blur together in the best way. You stop trying to isolate parts because the whole thing is working in tandem, each layer feeding into the next. It’s not just musicianship, it’s intuition. A band that understands how to move as one, how to let the sound breathe without overfilling the space.

The setlist leaned heavily into Everything Glows, but never at the expense of what came before. “Carousel” and “Starlight” felt almost weightless live, songs you don’t realize you’ve been swaying to until you’re already fully inside them, somewhere between stillness and motion. They moved through Fever Dream with “Bad Dream,” “Hurricane,” and “Purple Sun,” each one landing like a pulse before shifting into Heartbeat Highway with “Desire,” the title track, and “Loving You.”

By the time they closed with”Fire For You,” the room had completely given in. The floor wasn’t just moving; it was alive. Even barricade, packed tight and barely able to breathe, found a way to dance, like the energy had nowhere else to go.

The visual world around them only deepened it. A giant moon hovered center stage, casting everything in a soft, distant glow, while the LED backdrop shifted through colors that felt less like lighting cues and more like passing through different stages of being. Joy, dressed in all white, stood in stark contrast to the darker silhouettes of the band behind her, light against shadow, something emerging from something else. It mirrored the record itself: We come from light… the dark just made us forget. Everything Glows is about remembering.”

And that’s really what the night felt like. Not discovery, not even escape, but recognition. Like something familiar rising back to the surface.

If you get the chance to see Cannons live, don’t hesitate. I walked in only loosely familiar with Everything Glows, but it didn’t matter. Within minutes, I was pulled fully into their orbit, and by the end, it felt impossible to separate myself from it. That’s what their music does; it quiets everything else, if only for a little while, and lets you exist in something softer, something brighter. ASomething that, for a moment, glows.