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Shoegaze

Pomaa – Wide Eyed: Painfully Sober, Sonically Celestial Indie Dream Pop

Posted on 11 October 2023

With a transfixingly astral vocal register layering harmonies over the retro reverb-swathed synths, Pomaa’s latest single, Wide Eyed, bridges the gap between Siouxsie and the Banshees and cutting-edge outfits in the vein of Wolf Alice and Desperate Journalist while allowing you to linger in a kaleidoscope of dreamy psych-pop tones.

From the first immersion, the artist’s unique talents in blending the spirit of her own hypnotically authentic expression with the mixer of era-spanning signatures from shoegaze, post-punk, psych, pop and indie to pour the perfect sonic mocktail becomes immediately apparent.

Through Wide Eyed, Pomaa narrates the isolation of being the only sober person at a party; starved of connection and wracked with unshakable sensations which embed the loneliness of growing at a different pace to everyone around you.

Wide Eyed will be available to stream on all major platforms from October 11; stream it on Spotify & SoundCloud. If you like what you hear, stay tuned for the release of her debut EP, Bridge to Somewhere, which will drop on November 15.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

All isn’t fair in love and war in millar’s indie alt-electro-pop single, hunting ground

Posted on 12 September 2023

By drawing parallels between blood sports and romanticism in her indie alt-electro-pop single, hunting ground, the up-and-coming London-based singer-songwriter, millar, delivered a striking exposition of how nothing is fair in love and war when unsuspecting diehard romantics are forced to play by the rules of mind games.

As the atmospheric space progressively shifts from light to dark in the same vein as The Neighbourhood, Cigarettes After Sex and Perfume Genius around the strikingly angular indie guitar work which bears reminiscences to Slowdive and the driving backbeat that gives the single a punchily vindicating energy, hunting ground, is one of the most stunning UK indie tracks to spill up from the underground in 2023.

We can’t wait to hear where millar’s candour and inexplicable talents in euphonically visualising melancholy take her next.

hunting ground was officially released on September 1st; stream it now on Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Laney Ryan visualised an indie-folk dream for her latest single, This Path

Posted on 5 September 2023

‘This Path’ is the latest dreamy indie-folk single from the Boston-based singer-songwriter Laney Ryan, whose superlative ethereal atmospheres are always haunted by soulful possession.

With This Path, she delivered the reminder that what is lost will always be found; regardless of how lost and directionless you feel on your path, if you are moving forward, you will always find a way to find your way. The lush with choral reverb shoegaze guitars and the desert folk rhythm section create a captivating soundscape to contemplate the trajectory of your own journey while Ryan’s vocals deliver all of the assuring sanctity you could expect to soak up from a single.

Even though she sounds right at home in her indie folk sound, as a teen, Ryan had heavier music tastes; she eventually joined the LA alt-rock band The Brink, which became well-known in the Hollywood touring circuit. After five years of crafting high-octane hits, Ryan moved back to her hometown and started experimenting with a more acoustic sound that rings through in her contemporary material.

This Path will hit the airwaves on September 5; stream it on SoundCloud.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Bathe in the shimmering catharsis of whitewood drive’s distorted Tour De Force, cosmic hero

Posted on 1 September 2023
whitewood drive

While shoegaze bands that can cut through the derivative reverb-drenched tones don’t come around all too often in this era, whitewood drive proved that there are still creative ways to push through the washed-out choral distortion with their latest mellifluous-with-malaise single, cosmic hero.

By emanating the darkness of Bauhaus and following the Vapour Trail laid out by Ride, the Connecticut-hailing three-piece succeeded in crafting a single that lends itself well to the traditionalism of the genre while ensuring you have a reason to turn your attention away from your MBV and Slowdive records. The intricately evocative single may stir plaintive emotions, but the accordance lets you bathe in shimmering catharsis in the next breath. It’s a stunning release that harbingers even greater tonal triumphs to come.

cosmic hero is due for official release on September 1st; stream it on Spotify or download the track on Bandcamp.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Holy Gloam borrowed from Dinosaur Jr in their melancholic shoegaze serenade, Used for Falling

Posted on 15 July 2023

Making an authentic mark on the Shoegaze landscape where so many chorally dissonant signatures have been scribed is no easy feat; Holy Gloam succeeded all the same with their latest single, Used for Falling.

The vulnerable vocal lines become the soft sonic underbelly of the sludged-to-the-nines single, which uses clamorously effect-laden guitars to visualise the rancorous paths of descent our minds can take us down and sweeten the vocal harmonies in texturally sublime contrast. Sharpening the teeth of the melancholy is lyrical diehard romanticism, which paints a portrait of unconditional affection which distance and disconnection can’t diminish.

With their ability to invite their listeners into such evocatively compelling soundscapes which play the heartstrings as intricately and intimately as the guitars, the North Wales/NW England five-piece clearly have a bright future ahead of them. They have already been making major waves since songwriter Julian Neale founded the outfit in 2021; they’ve become staples in the NW touring circuit and their debut album, Small Nothings, was longlisted by Welsh Music Prize. Watch this space for more major moves from the scintillating evocateurs.

Used for Falling was officially released on July 7th; stream it on Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

 

Foreign Saints is sonorously spectral in their debut shoegaze single, Here With Me

Posted on 11 July 2023

If you placed yourself in the middle ground of Elliott Smith and Slowdive, you would be in good company with the sonorously spectral debut single, Here With Me, from Foreign Saints.

With a slice of psychedelia written into the indie pop songwriting chops, Here With Me unravels as a hazy kaleidoscope of wistful colour. As the lyrics allude to what’s lost through time and distance, the dreamy instrumentals envelop you in their reverb-swathed cathartic tonality.

The bedroom pop project from the Brooklyn-based musician, Thomas Roberts, may not be far past its inception, but Roberts is already proving himself to be an unreckonable resonant force. Fans of The Japanese House, War on Drugs, and Day Wave won’t want to let the project slip them by, especially with the debut EP in the pipeline.

Here With Me is now available to stream on Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Strange Things became the heirs to sonic obscurity with their vintage psych rock tour de force, Witness to the Apathy Gospel / Approaching Mindfulness

Posted on 1 June 2023

With the same fuzzy psychedelic alchemy that would be tasted in the notes of a cocktail of The Zombies, Sonic Youth, and Wire, the standout single, Witness to the Apathy Gospel / Approaching Mindfulness from Strange Things’ LP, In That Light of Fading Day will leave you intoxicated from the first time you savour the vintage tones.

The melting pot of psych, shoegaze and experimental noise, influenced by the likes of The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Telescopes and The Stooges, ensured that the LP from the Canadian connoisseurs of sonic obscurity was far from the ordinary lockdown-born albums that proliferated the airwaves when amateur hour seemed to stretch out in perpetuity.

Beneath the sludgy swathes of effects are some serious songwriting chops, written in the way the progressions immerse you even deeper in the vintage psych outpour of grief for the victims of the Uvalde County shooting.

Closing the single on headily distorted Eastern rhythms was the cherry on the sonic dissonance cake. Stream Witness to the Apathy Gospel / Approaching Mindfulness for yourselves via Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

dollhaus debuted their dream-goth potion of hell-hath-no-fury vindication, The Devil Makes a Sale

Posted on 12 April 2023

Two superlative staples of the London alt-scene, Katie Green & Rob Alexander, joined reverent post-punk forces to forge the new two-piece outfit dollhaus; the debut single, The Devil Makes a Sale, will leave you questioning, Siouxsie who?

Rhythmic hypnotism constructs the whirling dervish of a prelude before the guitars contort into angular prisms of kaleidoscopic colour as the basslines add dark depth around the harbingering percussion that punctuates the dreamy layers Katie Green’s glassy vocals filter into.

Chewing up and spitting out the archetypes attached to the dream-pop, post-punk, goth, and art-rock genres enabled dollhaus to effortlessly establish themselves as one to watch in a saturated scene. If anyone can appetise an apathetic alternative audience, it is dollhaus with this inordinately magnetic manifestation of pure songwriting talent that drinks like a potion of hell-hath-no-fury vindication.

Stream the Devil Makes a Sale on Spotify & Bandcamp.

Follow dollhaus on Facebook and Instagram.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

The Q-Days – Underboard: Alt-90s Nostalgia Has Never Been Kaleidoscopically Sweeter

Posted on 7 April 2023

The Brighton-based alt-rock outfit, The Q-Days, is driving nostalgia into the next generation of British guitar music with their dreamy kaleidoscopic 90s Britpop-kicked tones and cathartically honeyed vocal lines. Their latest single, Underboard, is sweeter than Sally Cinnamon under the duress of the choral progressions that lick anthemic soul into every honed note.

With escapism, freedom of expression and euphoria as their triadic ethos, they stand for everything we should be giving an ovation to in the UK right now. It’s the pits, but one thing is for sure, our polluted waters are the perfect breeding ground for prodigal sons of rock n roll that salvation seekers will want to flock to.

After spending their foundling days developing their craft before it reached the airwaves and live stages, The Q-Days were always going to be primed to make a killer debut. So far, they’ve opened for Youth Killed It, The Rifles, and Bilk, but if any breakthrough act is definitively headliner material, it’s The Q-Days.

Underboard will officially release on April 7th. Check it out on SoundCloud.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Frances Cleave explored the Pepsi and Coke of suffering with her Southern Gothic single, ‘Freedom vs. Loneliness’.

Posted on 4 April 2023

The sophomore single, Freedom vs Loneliness, from the indie songstress Frances Cleave, is an ethereally arrestive shoegazey Clannad-ESQUE exploration of sufferance. The 21-year-old singer-songwriter takes inspiration from her haunted city of Charleston, SC; it doesn’t get much more Southern Gothic than her latest single, which will drive you to breaking point in the presence of her harbingering vocal lines that effortlessly gel with the phantasmally reverb-soaked pensive synths and evocatively plucked acoustic guitar strings.

The lyrics subtly explore the triadic trauma imparted by religious trauma, sexualisation and objectification but there’s enough ambiguity within the lyricality for the listener to apply their own contexts of freedom and loneliness. It’s a poignant reminder that the grass isn’t always greener, especially when the ground is hallowed whichever way you turn.

We can’t wait to hear what else she has in the melancholic pipeline; her debut LP is due for release late 2023, following her next single, which is primed for release in May.

Freedom v Loneliness debuted on April 1. Stream it on Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast