Creating a genre album is a difficult task. Artists much manage a delicate equilibrium between their own voice and standard elements of the genre—it’s a balancing act with originality on one side and nostalgia on the other.

This is especially true for genres that rely heavily on nostalgia, such as shoegaze.

And yet France’s Dead Horse One is up to the task. The West Is the Best manages to color their voice with shades of all of the shoegaze greats without obscuring their originality.

I was first introduced to Dead Horse One through Instagram. On a platform filled with bands stalking potential listeners with completely nonsequitur comments, I was somehow inspired to actually give them a listen. And when I did, I immediately took to online marketplaces to track down a vinyl copy.

As everyone reading this blog knows, I am a big fan of shoegaze. I’m actually currently in the middle of the 33 1/3 book on My Bloody Valentine’s seminal Loveless, an album that has become both Bible and blueprint for 90s fetishists trying to create their own shoegaze classic. My collection is chock full of albums pairing dreamy textures with crushing walls of distorted guitar noise. My adoration of the genre is often enough to forgive soundalikes that are able to recreate the soundscapes of shoegaze pioneers without adding too much of their own spin on it (and there are plenty of those).

Dead Horse One certainly has no shortage of these nostalgia notes. And while many retro outfits tend to worship at the altar of one of the Big Three (My Bloody Valentine, Ride, and Slowdive), these French shoegazers are devout polytheists. This is particularly notable on the opening track, “Echo Street.” MBV’s woozy, tremolo barred chords play under delicate Slowdive-esque clean guitars and synth pads while the drums play furious grooves that wouldn’t be out of place on Nowhere. 

They also show devotion to lesser gods in the pantheon. The bouncing charm of “Saudade” has shades of Lush and Chapterhouse. Heavy tracks like “Lost” and “Olifnt” have a similar musculature to Swervedriver and Catherine Wheel.

But what makes them unique among the throngs of would-be genre heroes is that unlike many bands with Loveless fixations, Dead Horse One has not forgotten how much the godly shoegaze bands of yore loved psychedelic rock. The pot smoke-filled, acid-tinged haze of 60s psychedelia was an enormous influence on the druggy, otherworldly disorientation of 90s shoegaze. And on tracks like the sitar-droning “The Shrine” and the acoustic, jangling “Falling,” they wink to The Beatles, the Byrds, and Pink Floyd.

The most stunning track on the album is the closer, “My Pain,” a two-chord progression stretched to an epic expanse. Acoustic guitars strum pensively over a hazy atmosphere, swelling with layers of chords and synthesizers until it all gives way to a fiery electric solo that leads the song into oblivion. It’s a fitting closer, and a stunning microcosm for a record that often feels like a collage of influences. But like great collage artists, their own sensibilities are plainly seen by what they take from where, and how they arrange them.

We’re over a decade removed from the dawn of the so-called shoegaze revival (Cryptograms came out thirteen years ago), and by now, shoegaze is as mainstream as it’s ever been. The legions of disaffected teenagers discovering shoegaze on Tumblr are now adults, spending their paychecks on shoegaze vinyl and effects pedals. The field is starting to get pretty saturated. But if The West is the Best is any indication, this ground is still fertile.