Record #888: Blankenberge – Everything (2021)

Everyone talks about how the internet has made the world smaller, but less attention has been given to how it has expanded microcosms into galaxies. Microgenres have become scenes unto themselves, with legions of bands offering sonic homage to a handful of albums.

Where the term “shoegaze” originally referred to a dozen or so bands around London, the sonic explorations they pioneered have created hosts of acolytes making their own pilgrimages through reverb-and-fuzz-drenched guitars. This scene has further bifurcated itself, with further microscenes forming within the context of an already niche genre (see: dreamgaze, heavy shoegaze, blackgaze, doomgaze, dreamo and more).

One of the more fascinating microscenes I’ve discovered is the Russian shoegaze scene, which is comprised of bands like Life on Venus, Pinkshinyultrablast, and Blankenberge, whose album Everything is quickly becoming a favorite of mine.

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Record #878: Duster – Together (2022)

In a day and age where anyone with a smartphone can record an album themselves and distribute it around the world for free, it’s easy to forget the depths of obscurity that the cult bands of yesteryear trudged through.

Take for instance the slowcore outfit Duster, whose two full lengths in 1999 and 2000 received very little attention at the time. But with the emergence of social media and streaming, the few devoted fans of those records started finding each other and spread the word of Duster like gospel. The cult grew so much that eighteen years later, the band reunited, reissuing those two LPs and writing new ones.

And they haven’t missed a beat. Together, their second record since resurrecting, finds the band playing their personal brand of spaced-out, hazy slowcore with so much conviction that you might expect them to have been released twenty years ago.

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Record #871: Grivo – Omit (2022)

If you’ve been following my posts at all, you know that I have a fatal weakness for music that marries the heavy with the beautiful. I am powerless to resist just about any album that uses crushing volumes alongside gorgeous melodies and lush atmospheres (it’s kind of a problem, financially speaking).

Even though my record shelves are already stuffed full with such records, I am constantly on the hunt for more. Recently, I was trudging through Spotify’s “Fans Also Like” of bands I already love, and on Holy Fawn’s page, I discovered Grivo, a heavy shoegaze trio from Austin. I was instantly smitten, and when I went to show a friend who I knew would love it, I noticed that he had already sent it to me a few weeks prior.

But where Omit outshines so many albums with a similar ethos is in their glistening ambience, which is reminiscent more of dream pop bands like Cocteau Twins.

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Record #870: Executioner’s Mask – Winterlong (2022)

As I’ve made my way to reviewing music more or less full time, I’ve noticed that my own tastes have started trending into stranger and darker directions. A few of the records I’ve fallen in love with recently exist in eldritch soundscapes that might sound abominable to the average listener (see also: Cremation Lily, HERIOT).

So when I first came across Winterlong, I was already poised to love it. But when I saw that the press release compared them to Deerhunter, The National, and Alcest, I was rapt with intrigue. What sort of music could be accurately described by that unlikely trio?

As it turns out, Winterlong doesn’t just fall right in the middle of those three—it also has plenty of nods to Joy Division, The Cure, Slowdive, and even Black Sabbath. And that’s all while sounding focused and gripping.

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Record #850: Cremation Lily – Dreams Drenched in Static (2022)

Album art is a funny thing. As often as the warning is given not to judge a [record] by its cover, sometimes the visual aesthetic of the record perfectly matches the sound contained therein.

Take for example Dreams Drenched in Static, the new album from Cremation Lily, the solo project of Zen Zsigo. Soft images of waves, grasses, and sand dunes are torn apart and combined to form a jagged abstract collage. It’s a stunning visual representation of the sounds on the album: gentle elements like ambient guitars, floating keyboards, clean vocals, and laid back drum machines are chopped and manipulated and pasted together to create something that is harshly overexposed and monstrous. But at the same time, beneath the hiss of white noise and squeals of feedback is a sort of zen-like peace, like the warm embrace of the snow after an avalanche.

(And if it sounds like I’m just parroting the promo email from The Flenser, that’s because they quoted me in it).

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Record #841: Life on Venus – Odes to the Void (2019)

Every once in a while, I get a desire for new music that can almost be called bloodlust. A few weeks ago, that spell came over me, and I took to the hunt. I scoured Spotify, Bandcamp, review sites, Amazon recommendations, and more trying to find something that would slake my thirst.

There, in the “Fans also listen to” section of Holy Fawn’s Spotify page, I found Life on Venus, a Moscovian shoegaze/dream pop quintet. After finding both their Bandcamp and Discogs out of stock, I spent a few hours searching the internet trying to secure a copy. I finally found one on Amazon.de, gladly paid the extra for shipping, and waited impatiently.

And now that my prey is secured, it’s time to play it far too many times.

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Record #840: Les Discrets – Prédateurs (2017)

For most of their career, Les Discrets has been intrinsically locked with Alcest.

Both projects are pioneers in the blackgaze scene. Les Discrets bandleader Fursy and Alcest mastermind Neige played in the supergroup Amesouers (Neige has also played bass for Les Discrets on certain tours). They even shared drummer Winterhalter—who also played in Amesouers.

But when Winterhalter decided to work full-time with Alcest, Les Discrets was left without a drummer. Instead of try to replace him to write more hard-hitting, epic metal, Fursy decided to use the opportunity to change gears. And while the resulting album is a major change from earlier albums, it maintains the same delicate and beautiful balance between darkness and hope.

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Record #835: Cloakroom – Dissolution Wave (2022)

Few bands have misrepresented themselves quite as severely as when Cloakroom described themselves as “stoner emo.” Certainly, there was no way that they could have predicted the wave of bands like Mom Jeans (and nothing like Cloakroom) that would be described as “weed emo,” but even without that confusion, there’s not much emo about what they’ve ever done. They have borne a resemblance to a certain 90s alternative band out of Champagne-Urbana, but they’ve always been much closer to HUM than Braid.

But the stoner bit…that’s never been up for debate. Extracurriculars aside, their guitars have always carried the same sort of heft as stoner metal bands like Kyuss and Sleep. But Dissolution Wave sounds the most like what I could imagine wafting out of my older brother’s bedroom carried with wisps of sage-masked pot smoke—if I had an older brother, anyway.

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Record #834: Blushing – Possessions (2022)

Shoegaze often has a problem with valuing style over substance. The genre is primarily built on hazy aesthetics and a collection of pet sounds copped largely from My Bloody Valentine and their contemporaries. The modern shoegaze scene is filled with bands pumping out songs that wouldn’t be worth a damn without their Instagram-ready pedalboards, and the fans that support them. And I’d know: I’m one of those fans.

Luckily, Texas quartet Blushing manages to nail the Platonic ideal of the shoegaze aesthetic without skimping on fresh songwriting and composition.

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