shoegaze
ALBUM REVIEW: The Besnard Lakes – ‘ … Are the Last of the Great Thunderstorm Warnings’
Are the Last of the Great Thunderstorm Warnings is the sound of a band set free, wings spread; big, theatrical, but not self-indulgent. They know exactly what these songs demand and are prepared to give them everything they need. In terms of scope, file next to Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space and The Soft Bulletin. A lot going on, in short. Trust in their vision; they’ve got this.
PREMIERE: Mute Swan – ‘Sedative Sun’: dazzling Tucson shoegaze tees up for their new album
THINK Arizona, think big, big skies; and maybe we just need to amend that a little, what with Citrus Clouds carving out an impressive shoegaze aesthetic over in Phoenix, and Mute Swan a hundred-odd clicks south-east down the Arizona Sun Corridor in Tucson also wielding massive, FX-laden six strings with potency – the state is …
Bleach Lab announce EP for March – hear the blissful glide of ‘Old Ways’
FORMED up in the wooded hills of Buckinghamshire, since relocated south of the Thames, Bleach Lab have an appreciation of the good things; think the Cocteau Twins, think Mazzy Star, think glimmer and shimmer, languid vocals spreading loving and lovelorn vocals over guitar chime. All the good things. Despite 2020 sending a viral tornado through …
TRACK: Graywave – ‘Before’: shoegaze nocturne teases for EP
JUST before Christmas, Backseat Mafia had the absolute privilege of premiering “Like Heaven”, a brilliant surge of dream pop haze and melody from Graywave, the musical project of the West Midlands’ Jess Webberley. We’ll let you into a little secret: she’s a bit ace. Jess is shaping for the release of Graywave’s debut EP, Planetary …
NEWS: Cheval Sombre announces February album for Sonic Cathedral
CHRIS PORPORA makes very, very beautiful and hushed music as Cheval Sombre – and makes it very much at his own pace; he is, as we shall see, very much concerned with the passage of time and all its tricks in the human brain. And he’s just announced the release of a new album, Time …
EP: Pluto Is A Planet – Dying Every Second
Out now on Bandcamp, via Shore Dive Records is the debut ep, ‘Dying Every Second’ from Australian Dreampop/Shoegaze/Synth band, Pluto Is A Planet. The EP opener ‘Binary’ is a track which wavers in a hazy ambience, before being catapulted into noisy guitar Shoegaze yet underpinned by a Dancy, Baggy Beat. This tune, with its rhythms, …
PREMIERE: Graywave – ‘Like Heaven’: surging, solo dreampop beauty
GRAYWAVE is the upcoming one-woman musical project of Jess Webberley who, after being a member of various other bands, decided to strike out with her own collaboratively untainted version of what a cracking dream pop aesthetic might be. She followed her instincts; and a listen to the track we’re premiering here today, “Like Heaven”, and …
SEE: Cheval Sombre returns with the hazy hush of ‘It’s Not Time’
HE’S BEEN away from our ears as a solo artist for what? Crikey it’s actually eight years now, how the egg-timer sands run; but Chris Porpora, who guises up for the world of music as Cheval Sombre, has come ambling in at the absolute final knockings of the year with a leaf-skeleton of absolute delicacy …
ALBUM REVIEW: Coldharbourstores – ‘Dearly Devoted’: gorgeous dreampop fourth
Coldharbourstores’ fourth is absolute industry standard dreampop – a hallmark by which the genre can be measured. It’s glowing, blissful and leftfield, while still being full of pop melodicism