Tag: Shoegaze
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Sway ‘The Millia Pink And Green’ (2003)
Sway’s The Millia Pink and Green EP is one of those quietly brilliant records that has never got the recognition it truly deserves. It’s pretty much completely unknown outside of a cadre of hardcore shoegaze fans. You have all the typical shoegaze tropes, layered guitars that shimmer and dissolve, while vocals float like whispers in…
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Soul Blind ‘Feel It All Around’ (2022)
The shoegaze offshoot run continues this week, with Soul Blind’s debut album Feel It All Around our next stop on the dreamscape journey. Soul Blind is definitely on the heavier side, more oriented on modern metal, but incorporates just the right blend of shoegaze haziness and a surprising little dash of mid-aughts post-hardcore emo energy…
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Narrow Head ‘Satisfaction’ (2016)
I’ve been on a bit of a shoegaze and all of its offshoots kick lately and I stumbled upon Narrow Head during my exploration of that genre. The band draws plenty of inspiration from Siamese Dream-era Smashing Pumpkins with those fuzzy, layered guitars and a warm wall of sound that walks that fine line between…
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Slowdive ‘Souvlaki’ (1994)
Souvlaki was marked by some pretty unfortunate circumstances from the outset. Recorded after the band scrapped an entire batch of recording sessions (40 full and completed songs that they simply discarded) it came out in 1993 right as the British press decided that they had enough of shoegaze. The label troubles didn’t make things easier…
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Beach House ‘Depression Cherry’ (2015)
Depression Cherry is music made for quiet, misty mornings when the world hasn’t quite decided what mood it’s in yet. The album found the duo drifting back to their earlier, simpler dream pop sound, crafting lullabies for millennials who enjoy spending their evenings past the stroke of midnight. The band purposefully scaled back the big…
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M83 ‘Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming’ (2011)
Synth pop was absolutely all the rage during the 2010’s and there’s very few songs out their that capture that feeling of youthful exploration better and more succinctly than “Midnight City” off Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming. From the bizarre ass synth introduction to the massive drum fill that kicks everything into high gear to softly…
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Modern Color ‘From The Leaves of Your Garden’ (2020)
I’m seeing Thrice live for the first time in like 20 odd years later this year (November 21st, circle the date) and stumbled upon Modern Color since they’ll be opening the show for them. And hot damn did Thrice ever pick a banger of a young band to open up for them in Modern Color.…
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Wisp ‘Pandora’ (2024)
It’s not often I immediately replay an album I’m hearing for the first time from a new artist. Listening to one album per day across over the last two and a half years will do that to a man, creating an insatiable desire to find the next thing that will delight the ol’ eardrums and…
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Casey ‘Love Is Not Enough’ (2016)
I dearly loved Casey’s 2024 comeback album How To Disappear, and their debut album Love Is Not Enough from 2016 is equally special albeit in an entirely different way that harkens back to one of my favorite albums from the mid-2000’s. Imagine for a moment two brothers separated at birth, adopted and raised by two…
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Chappaqua Wrestling ‘Plus Ultra’ (2023)
Chappaqua Wrestling’s debut album Plus Ultra is a kaleidoscope of sound that merges the dreamy textures of shoegaze with the swagger of Britpop, creating a sonic identity that is both nostalgic and forward-thinking. The Brighton-based band channels the shimmering guitars of My Bloody Valentine and the anthemic confidence of Oasis (once you hear it you…
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The Smashing Pumpkins ‘Siamese Dream’ (1993)
Released in 1993, The Smashing Pumpkins’ Siamese Dream stands as a defining artifact of 90s alternative rock, capturing a pivotal moment in the genre’s evolution. At a time when grunge was peaking with albums like Nirvana’s 1991 magnum opus Nevermind and Pearl Jam’s debut album Ten, Siamese Dream emerged as a bold statement, blending the…
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TV on the Radio ‘Return to Cookie Mountain’ (2006)
Return to Cookie Mountain was released during my freshman year of high school. One of my new friends in that class burned me a copy to listen to and I distinctly remember the feeling I had when I first heard “I Was a Lover”. It was a feeling of wonderment, strangeness, and utter disbelief. Being…
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My Bloody Valentine ‘Loveless’ (1991)
Every once in awhile an album comes along that completely changes the trajectory of music history. The Velvet Underground inspired a legion of miscreants to start their own bands in 1967 with their lo-fi avant garde production quality, Eric B. & Rakim’s 1987 magnum opus Paid In Full introduced complex rhyme structures that changed the…
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Casey ‘How To Disappear’ (2024)
Casey’s 2024 album How To Disappear marked a return for the Welsh based five piece after a five year hiatus where there future was uncertain. The band broke up in 2019 after lead singer Tom Weaver suffered severe health complications, reuniting a few years later once they realized they collectively had more to say. The…
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Orville Peck ‘Pony’ (2019)
From the opening note of Orville Peck’s Pony, his respect for traditional country in the vein of Glen Campbell and Merle Haggard, a natural storyteller whose vignettes of love and all the anxiety that can come along with those feelings spill out of his guts in passionate fashion. Peck’s rich baritone soaked in reverb is…
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Cigarettes After Sex ‘Self-Titled’ (2017)
We’ve talked previously about how some albums are an aesthetic as much as they are a collection of songs (The XX’s self-titled 2009 debut and Bon Iver’s 2008 album For Emma, Forever Ago being two great examples), and Cigarettes After Sex is undoubtedly a band that fits that mold perfectly. Featuring reverb-soaked guitar arpeggios, soft…
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Roxy Music ‘Avalon’ (1982)
Roxy Music had long moved past its early 70’s art rock phase with Brian Eno by the time the early 80’s rolled around, but the band’s deep and rich history of avant garde synth pop is still present underneath all the wonderfully manicured pop sheen found littered throughout Avalon. From the sultry saxaphones to the…
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Turnstile ‘GLOW ON’ (2021)
Turnstile’s 2021 album GLOW ON was somewhat of a defining moment for hardcore music in that it broke down a lot of barriers for the genre commercially. This was an album that made multiple mainstream “Best Of” lists for album of the year (not just rock album, album album), charted at #30 on the Billboard…
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Cocteau Twins ‘Heaven or Las Vegas’ (1990)
Soaring synths. Pulsing bass. Lucious landscapes. Tom’s and snares pitched for maximum reverb. This is dreampop at its finest, delivered in a way only true pioneers of the genre Cocteau Twins could deliver. Elizabeth Fraser’s vocals in particular stand out on this record, her mysterious Scottish-tinged soprano floating above dense arrangements like a ray of…
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