Austin’s The Black Drumset isn’t just a band, it’s an experiment. Brian Wiley has released three studio recordings since 2009 and the latest, Friends in Dark Places was carefully crafted over the course of seven years, its seven songs are full-bodied trips into the nexus between interstellar intrigue and carnal rhythms. With droning keyboards as copiously applied as the droning guitars, it’s the drums, other percussion, and Wiley’s mesmerizingly monotone vocals that provide a solid center. “Everything turns in time/ See my place in this life/ Every place, every time/ Beauty, hope, peace of mind,” he sings, offering a reassurance that gives way to an extended, entrancing jam.
Wiley’s music radiates a calm, justified…
Category: shoegaze
Making guitar pop/rock (of any kind) work more often than not depends on the synergy of musicians involved, rather than the guitar expertise, and sometimes even the songwriting quality. That synergy seems to be the driving force for the guitar pop Manchester-to-London duo atmos bloom (Tilda Gratton and Curtis Paterson) create on their second album Everythingness.
The duo, who also became life partners, create the kind of guitar pop where that of every kind from above parentheses comes into play – it can be dream pop, it can be twee pop, it could be jangle pop or whatnot – the thing is Gratton and Paterson practically cover it all here. And they wrap it in some very good to excellent songwriting and equal quality harmonies, with high quality…
She’s green have been justifiably building buzz as purveyors of a mighty fine brand of shoegaze and ethereal indie rock since their 2023 EP Wisteria took the scene by storm. Now swallowtail arrives ready to cement their status as one of the best and most exciting bands of their time. Coming in at seven tracks and 29 minutes this record still counts as a long EP rather than a short album. The power and beauty of the band is only growing, which is shown in multiple spots on the record, whether on the more understated “dear ivy” (“and I need you know” ringing out in its latter stages atop some beautiful lead guitar lines) or in the more restrained “empty house” where vocalist Zofia Smith truly comes to the fore.
Elsewhere, tracks build to perhaps more…
With time and experience always comes a sense of knowing, and CASTLEBEAT built his new album around this idea. After releasing his debut album, CASTLEBEAT has spent the last decade working on his record label, spirit goth. CASTLEBEAT II feels like a landmark project he’s been leading up to, revisiting sketches of songs from his debut, and giving them a second life.
CASTLEBEAT, a.k.a. Josh Hwang, returns to his roots on this new record, but expands it further. The indie dream pop artist stays firmly rooted within the genre, with guitar riffs in “This Takes Time” feeling unmistakably 2016, while tracks like ‘Table and Chair’ add elements of electronic drums and layered production that bend far beyond the constraints of genre.
There’s something delightfully uncomplicated about the music of Unwed Sailor.
Founding member and bassist Johnathon Ford (Pedro the Lion, Roadside Monument) infuses the instrumental tracks with his distinct, melodic bass lines while drummer Matt Putman and guitarist David Swatzell fill in the blanks with a sound that embraces the basic framework of so many different styles: new wave, post-rock, krautrock, you name it. Floating above it all is a sense of nostalgia that’s bittersweet and somehow never condescending or derivative.
Their latest album, High Remembrance, follows last year’s Cruel Entertainment and continues a prolific streak that began in 2019 after a decade-long hiatus. This album, their 11th,…
Daniel Monkman’s third album as Zoon, Happy Thought School, addresses similar themes as the project’s previous releases, from the racial prejudice the artist faced as an Indigenous student to their struggle with addiction. The songs blend the artist’s “moccasin-gaze” style with elements of 2000s-era pop and early-2010s indie rock, and it includes collaborations with Chris Chu, who attempted similar genre fusions with his groups the Morning Benders and POP ETC. The album’s title refers to the school Monkman attended, where they were one of the only Indigenous students, and were subject to racist discrimination from classmates as well as teachers. The traumatic experiences at school led Monkman to seek refuge by playing music, and to cope with pain…
Turnover have made a habit of shedding their skin with each new record. The Virginia Beach outfit, led by brothers Austin and Casey Getz, came up in an early-2010s emo and pop-punk scene that had long abandoned the mathematics of its Midwest enclave and the theatrics of its biggest stars. Their debut Magnolia basically refused any classification beyond “alternative rock,” a sound hardly built to last. Nevertheless, Turnover garnered enough of a following to whisk fans into the world of dream pop with their 2015 breakout Peripheral Vision, and they’ve only continued to evolve since then, pulling from sunbaked vineyard rock, lazy background music and vocoded disco with varying results. Their sixth album, Down on Earth, looks back on that consensus masterpiece with…
Much of the publicity surrounding Deadlights refers to it as Lauren Lakis’ debut, but surely her releases have been appearing fairly regularly since Ferocious in 2018, making this her fourth album? Whatever; the cover photo of Deadlights appears to be a messy, witty and possibly dark homage to the cover of the Cars’ 1978 debut.
There is sometimes a pop sensibility lurking at the heart of Lakis’ songs, but although powerful, it’s definitely not “power pop,” as its melodies are generally submerged in surging and ebbing distorted guitars. Deadlights is essentially a shoegaze record with some strong ‘90s alt-rock inflections, and much of it trudges along disconsolately with Lakis’ dreamy, reverb-masked voice riding the waves of guitar and…
One of the more enigmatic bands of the classic 4AD era, Swallow was formed by Louise Trehy and Mike Mason, who met in early 90’s Camberwell, London. both were deeply involved with the independent music scene of the time; Louise co-founded Setanta Records (home of The Divine Comedy, Edwyn Collins and Into Paradise with whom Mike would occasionally play), and Mike traversed between bike courier, video director, and lighting designer for Spacemen 3, Slowdive, Spiritualized, Curve and Chapterhouse. Prompted by Louise, they started writing songs together, drawing inspiration from a healthy mix of sources: CAN, noise, post-punk, and American forces of nature like Captain Beefheart and Butthole Surfers. Their first songs quickly surfaced and were recorded…
The Suncharms are a band with an interesting history. They date back to 1989, and called it a day in 1993, but not before releasing a couple of EPs. In 2015 they reformed, and since then have released two albums.
…their third album Darkening Sky unfolds as a luminous exploration of reflection and sonic patience, a record that balances emotional immediacy with the quiet assurance of seasoned musicianship. From the opening track, “Midnight Train,” the band establishes a world of expansive indie-pop textures, Matt Neale’s guitar shimmering over a subtle rhythm section, while the trumpet’s late entrance adds a warm, unexpected depth that hints at the album’s willingness to bend conventional forms. The song evokes…
It’s only been three years since Feeble Little Horse last released an album—2023’s excellent, blown-out Girl With Fish—but between the canceled tour, a standalone single, and sporadic activity online since then, it feels like the wait has been far longer. Alas, that ends very soon; Feeble Little Horse are releasing their new album, Bitknot. The band hasn’t shared any further information about the LP, so this comes very close to qualifying for “surprise release” status.
Feeble Little Horse embrace the D.I.Y. nature of the Pittsburgh music scene, from the gauzy, more immediate sound of their live performances to the extra attention they pay and the flourishes they add to their recorded output. They were formed in 2021 by guitarists Sebastian Kinsler…
As humans, we have an inherent desire to connect with those around us. These relationships shape our social interactions and influence us in ways we may not realize, each moment subconsciously ingrained in our decision-making. The people we decide to keep in our lives come with the weight of influence, but unfortunately, these wildly important relationships never hold the staying power they promise. We are all made up of the mistakes, triumphs, and losses that come with building a connection with someone, and how these lessons linger in future relationships. When someone decides to exit your life entirely, their presence takes on a ghostly aesthetic, leaving a void they once filled, and a rush to fill it ensues.
That moment of panic after your support…
The Asteroid No.4 return in 2026 with In Praise of Shadows, their thirteenth full length album and a statement release that reaffirms the band’s enduring place within the modern psychedelic underground.
In Praise of Shadows captures The Asteroid No.4 at their most focused and assured, leaning fully into the shoegaze sound for which they are best known. Swathed in multi layered guitars, dense reverb, and hypnotic melodic drift, the record reflects decades of refinement while retaining the immediacy and emotional pull that has defined the band since their earliest releases.
Formed in Philadelphia in the late 1990s and now based in the San Francisco Bay Area, The Asteroid No.4 have built a reputation…
Fuzz Club are becoming one of the key hubs for all sounds psychedelic – whether it is the music that is fully in vein with the original psych of the late sixties or any of the updated versions from there on to current times. In that respect, to all who follow all things psych, it will probably be no surprise that one of the modern purveyors of psych that are Minneapolis’ Jason Edmonds and his Magic Castles, have found their way to this label with their new offering Realized.
Edmonds, as the bad’s principal songwriter, has always favoured that trippy, dream-like thread that original psychedelia introduced (not much fuzz or energy rush there), giving it that shoegaze/dream pop veneer, but then updated for the new century. Of course, many critics have…
Following the release of their debut, The Haunted Youth return with their second studio album, Boys Cry Too via Play It Again Sam. Beginning as the solo project of artist Joachim Liebens, the band today reveal the first single to be lifted from the record, deathwish, featuring fellow collaborator and Orlando-based singer-songwriter, Max Fry.
On Boys Cry Too, Joachim Liebens abandons the fragile, bedroom-pop innocence of Dawn Of The Freak – a debut that has since earned cult status back home – in favour of something far more confrontational and emotionally charged. From the towering eight-minute opener in my head to the closing track ghost girl, the album lets go of restraint in favour of something more raw, blending fragile melodies…
White Flowers, the long-running collaboration between Joey Cobb and Katie Drew, exists within what they call “the realm” – a shared creative space, wherein time, rather than being a restrictive force, is fluid and boundless, and music exists as an endless conversation with their past and present selves. Adopting what the band describe as a “sketchbook” approach to writing, White Flowers is the product of a decade’s worth of recordings – snippets nestled away on hard drives, only to truly make sense years later.
On Dreams For Somebody Else, the Preston duo expand upon the dark-hued dream pop of their debut, channelling the catharsis of dance music via repetitive structures and “sad, euphoric sounds”. Working alongside…
Even on the first 30 seconds of Prism Shores’s debut EP the Montreal quartet’s preternatural gift for great guitar jangle is apparent. It’s all there: Crisply arpeggiated chords played with hints of echo and distortion, plus a heaping helping of melancholy — catchy, comforting, a cozy jacket with its collar upturned on an overcast day.
Thirty seconds does not a catalog make, of course, and Prism Shores have been gently pushing their sound outward ever since. Their debut full-length, 2022’s Inside My Diving Bell, added a bit of post-punk heft by turning up the rhythm section, while last year’s excellent Out from Underneath found the band building a sturdier wall of sound by bringing in additional voices, synths, and strings for texture, and some crunchy shoegaze swirl.
When deary, the dreampop three-piece composed of Ben Easton (guitar), Dottie Cockram (vocals, guitar) and Harry Catchpole (drums), named their debut album Birding, it wasn’t just as an homage to our feathered friends, they were referencing the sense of expansion, wonder, and abandon their music evokes. They chose the title to draw attention to the direct impact humans have on the world around us, whether that be nature, or ourselves.
“I got really into reading about birds and all these historical stories and poetry about them,” says singer/guitarist Dottie. “You find these beautiful images of birds that represent hope, but they’re also animals. Some of them, like vultures and crows, are a sign of death to some people. They represent all these different…
The second act of The Julies has been one of the most surprising and unlikely comebacks in recent memory, but then “surprising and unlikely” is kind of the group’s whole M.O.
Hailing from the storied rock ‘n’ roll town of…Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, and with a sound heavily indebted to Britpop, the Julies’ most beloved work is an EP that was released in 1996 after they’d broken up, and which steadily amassed a cult following. It was a reissue of that EP, called Lovelife, in 2020 by the label Lost in Ohio that spurred the group back into action. And if their 2023 album Always & Always sounded, to these ears, tentative in some places — the sound of a band cranking the gears back up to see what they could do — Cherisher is big, loud, and…
One of the clearest examples of an album that crafts a strange and beautiful world not quite like any other is Rocketship’s 1996 full-length debut A Certain Smile, A Certain Sadness. Even upon arrival, this was an experience unto itself, and 30 years later, these eight songs of bittersweet bliss still feel new.
Rocketship spiked their deliciously melodic indiepop with buzzing organs, spacey interstitials and motorik repetition, aligning them with mid-90s peers like Stereolab and Unrest. “A Certain Smile, A Certain Sadness” is an album of unrepentantly vulnerable melodies, unusual seventh chords, lingering ambient interludes, and soft sentiments released at a time when unfriendly, self-conscious punk rock was the order of the day…