Empire Of The Sun’s sophomore album Ice On The Dune has announced the comeback of Luke Steele and Nick Littlemore’s electro pop empire in grand style by storming into the US BILLBOARD 200 album chart today at #20.
It marks an extremely impressive follow up to their #3 ARIA chart debut this week. ‘Ice On The Dune’ is the first Top 20 album for Empire Of The Sun in the USA, a remarkable achievement for any Australian act, let alone one that falls outside of any easily identifiable category in the competitive US market.
In addition to this, Ice On The Dune has been blazing across charts around the rest of the world with peak positions of #2 in South Africa and Mexico, #3 in France, Italy, and Switzerland, #8 in UK, Ireland, Germany, Belgium, Austria and Netherlands, and Top 10 in a handful of other countries on the iTunes album charts.
Empire Of The Sun have been on the promo trail in support of the new album and unveiling their incredible live show to audiences in Europe, America and Australia with performances at Bonnaroo, Electric Daisy Carnival, two sold out headline shows at the Sydney Opera House and incredible live set on US TV showJimmy Kimmel Live!
The group have also been tapped on the shoulder the score the forthcoming sequel to cult comedy Dumb And Dumber, with original stars Jeff Daniels and Jim Carrey set to reprise their roles as Harry and Lloyd.
But the score for Dumb And Dumber isn’t the only new music Empire Of The Sun are working on. Luke Steele revealed in an interview in May that the group have already begun writing for their third album.
Steele is also keeping creative working with longtime friend, Silverchair frontman Daniel Johns, on a new album loosely “inspired by African music”, with the result “sounding a bit like The Clash, [a]bit Talking Heads.” Steele noting it’s “good to do some tougher, kind of hard-edge kind of stuff”.
Following the Vivid LIVE shows, Empire Of The Sun hit America for an appearance at Bonnaroo Festival and an American tour before returning home in July, playing a part in the mammoth Splendour In The Grass 2013 lineup, alongside other Australian acts with 2013 releases, including Bernard Fanning, The Drones, Cloud Control, Boy & Bear, The Growl, Birds of Tokyo, Songs, The Chemist and many more.
The Empire Of The Sun live show then rolls overseas once more, with appearances at LA’s HARD Summer Music Festival, Hungary’s Sziget Festival, the Wilderness Festival in London, Lowlands in The Netherlands, and the the Jay-Z-curated Made In America Festival.
