Chicago Alt Indie Archives

Park National Spilled the Soul-Spiked Ache of Loving Through Self-Loathing in the Shoegazed Emo Anthem, ‘Your Mom’s House’

Posted on 15 May 2025

It took a few decades for Midwest emo to grow up, but that long-awaited maturity resounds in the sludgy shoegazed guitar tones of Your Mom’s House by Park National, which still delivers the visceral ache of emotions pouring out into a world that is all too ready to distort them with dissonance. But the cultivation on display that carves its way through the locked-on emotive target overdriven guitar tones elevates this anthem of ennui to the nth degree.

With one of the strongest guitar solos I’ve ever heard in emo-adjacent territory paired with the sheer striking sensibility of Your Mom’s House, which delivers the pained refrain of “just because I can’t love myself, doesn’t mean I can’t love you”, it is no surprise that Park National is amassing followers like there’s no tomorrow with the smorgasbord of resonance he distills into his vignettes.

Park National is the project of Chicago’s Liam Fagan, who broke through in 2020 with the self-produced The Big Glad, a record soaked in coming-of-age angst and serrated emo-pop textures. He’s now barrelling into new sonic territory with You Have to Keep Searching, a lo-fi-flecked, fuzz-soaked, genre-warping body of work that serves as a conduit for catharsis and chaos in equal measure. Guided by a DIY ethos and unflinching introspection, Fagan’s evolution is anything but obscure.

Your Mom’s House is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Chicago’s Sleeps While Walking made their kinetically affecting shoegaze debut with ‘One Trick Pony’

Posted on 14 July 2024

Sleeps While Walking, one of the most promising DIY alt/indie rock outfits to crawl from the underbelly of the Chicago scene has unleashed their kinetically affecting, obsession-worthy debut single, One Trick Pony.

Quite honestly, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Paul Banks has forged a new supergroup to sit alongside Muzz and Interpol for the way the achingly emotional vocal lines cut through the discordant atmosphere of shoegaze synthesised with the sludge of grunge.

As the rough rings of choppy acoustic guitar strings from the intro evolve into windingly hypnotic distorted guitars and start laying the foundation to build an insurmountable wall of sound that is constructed in the middle ground of Deftones and My Bloody Valentine, prepare for heart-in-throat immersion from the soundscape which is underpinned by forlorn grit and gyrating gravitas.

The deeply emotional inflections in the piano-decorated melodies are enough to render your heartstrings raw; with the vocals centrally placed in the chaos of the production pulsating further heartbreak into the debut, Sleeps While Walking became one of the strongest and the most original shoegaze outfits of 2024.

They cut straight through the static of indie landfill with intense precision and challenged my jaded-by-endless-assimilation view of the alt-indie scene. It may be cliché to declare they’re the real deal, but they’re unmistakenly authentic conduits of resonant revolution. Join them at the vanguard.

One Trick Pony was officially released on July 1; stream the single on Spotify and await the debut album which will drop on July 19.

Review by Amelia Vandergast