Category: Shoegaze

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Venice’s Glazyhaze Shares Breakneck “ROMEO”

Venice-based indie outfit Glazyhaze — Irene (vocal, guitar), Lorenzo (guitar), Francesco (drums, programming) and Vsevolod (bass, backing vocals) — quickly established a sound that draws from shoegaze, dream pop and alternative rock with the release of their full-length debut, 2023’s Just Fade Away.

Since the release of Just Fade Away, the band has toured across Europe and the UK, opening for the likes of Trentemøller, Hater, Film School and a lengthy list of others. Building up on a growing profile across Europe and the UK, the band released their Paolo Canaglia-produced sophomore album SONIC earlier this year.

Recorded between Northeast Italy and London, the Italian band’s sophomore album thematically explores the complexities of love through a journey of self-discovery and emotional contrasts. Sonically, the album sees the quartet embracing shoegaze, bedroom pop, post-punk and art rock influences. The band supported the album opening for Soft Cult on their European tour as well as a handful of dates with The Raveonettes, Slow Crush, Lucy Kruger and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. And adding to a growing profile, the band has received airplay on KEXP, Rai Radio 2, FM4 and BBC Radio 6’s Steve Lamacq.

Clocking in at a 2:31, SONIC’s latest single, “ROMEO” is a breakneck gallop of a tune anchored around swirling, reverb and distortion-drenched guitar textures, a propulsive rhythm section that seemingly channels 120 Minutes-era MTV-era alt rock. Much like the period that the song and the band channels, “ROMEO” is underpinned by subtle yet noticeable tension between anger, sweetness and nostalgia.

The new single captures the powerlessness that often comes with loving someone who can’t love themselves — and are unwilling and/or incapable of change. As the band explains, “ROMEO” is a song for those who hide behind stubborn pride, who would be more willing to destroy everything rather than show vulnerability; for those who seemingly live with the appearance of control but burn inside and won’t readily admit it. They add that the song is most importantly, a farewell to the illusion — or delusion — that you can save someone who doesn’t want to be saved.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Tucson’s Mute Swan Shares woozy “Hypnosis Tapes”

With the release of their debut EP, 2016’s Ultraviolet and their full-length debut, 2021’s Only Ever, Tucson-based shoegaze/dream pop outfit Mute Swan — currently, Mike Barnett (guitar/vocals), Prabjit Virdee (bass, vocals), and Gilbert Flores (drums) — quickly established a swirling, densely layered take on psych rock that some critics and others have compared to Of Montreal and Soft Bulletin-era Flaming Lips.

2021’s Only Ever was released to praise from The FADER, Merry-Go-Round Magazine and several others, as well as airplay on KEXP.

The band recently signed to Hit The North Records/Wooden Tooth Records, who released the Tucson-based outfit’s latest single “Hypnosis Tapes.” The new single is the first bit of new of material from the band since their debut album — and is part of a batch of material that will be posthumously released after the tragic death of founding member Thomas Sloane.

“Hypnosis Tapes” features Barnett’s breathy delivery ethereally floating over a woozy soundscape featuring glitchy and swelling electronics, fuzzy, acid-tinged guitars paired with relentlessly driving four-on-floor. While still drawing from shoegaze, “Hypnosis Tapes” may arguably be the most Brit Pop-leaning track of their growing catalog to date.

“We had only approved the final mix of this song weeks before when we lost our best friend and guitarist, Tom Sloane. It is the first of a collection of his last songs we felt especially determined to give a proper release into the world,” the band’s Mike Barnett says. “Displaying some of his best textural guitarwork, this song is about finding some kind of inner peace through the noise of chaotic times and endless mental chatter. There’s a meditation tape sampled at the end, as well as a vacuum cleaner in reverse at the beginning (an inside joke of ours).”

Directed by the band’s Mike Barnett, the accompanying video for “Hypnosis Tapes” features the band’s three surviving members hanging out in someone’s living room. Virdee and Flores are busy fiddling around while Barnett strums his guitar and sings. And it’s all set in trippy kaleidoscopic filters, which sees the members melt and morph into one another.

The new single and video comes on the heels of the Tucson-based band playing opening slots for Horse Jumper of Love, Wednesday, Tanukichan and Peel Dream Magazine, as well as a set at this year’s Levitation Festival. The band has big plans for next year, so be on the lookout.
 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Dear Boy Shares Madchester-like “The Address”

Los Angeles-based indie outfit Dear Boy — founding members Ben Grey (vocals, guitar) and Keith Cooper (drums) alongside Austin Hayman (lead guitar) and Lucy Lawrence (bass, vocals) — can trace their origins back to when its founding members Grey and Cooper were living in London during their mid-twenties. Hayman and Lawrence joined the band once its founding duo returned to the States.

Interestingly, despite their Stateside roots, the Los Angeles-based quartet’s work has drawn from ’80s and ’90s Brit pop and shoegaze — with the band citing Pulp, Oasis, Slowdive and The Jesus and Mary Chain as major influences, while also embracing the likes of Pixies and R.E.M. 

The band’s sophomore album sophomore album, the Aron Kobayashi Ritch-produced Celebrator is slated for an October 17, 2025 release through Last Gang Records. Following the success of their full-length debut, 2022’s Forever Sometimes, the band took a step back from perfectionist production practices and leaned into spontaneity. Written in 12 sessions and recorded live in under two weeks, the album’s material reportedly bristles with a palpable energy while showcasing the band’s musical and creative chemistry. “We made this album to remember why we do this in the first place,” the band says. “Because we love it. We adore each other. Joy. Connection. Heartbreak. Celebration. We’re not interested in anything other than that.”

Celebration will feature the previously released “After All,” feat. Rocket’s Alithea Tuttle, a bombastic anthem that brings 120 Minutes-era MTV and 90s Brit Pop to mind. The album’s latest single “The Address” continues the band’s Brit Pop-meets-shoegaze while featuring a Happy Mondays/Madchester-style breakbeat-driven drum groove and shoegazer textured guitar chug serving as a lush yet subtly dance floor friendly bed for Ben Grey’s plaintive and yearning delivery.

Much like its immediate predecessor, “The Address” showcases the band’s uncanny knack for paring catchy hooks and swaggering bombast with earnest, lived-in lyricism.

Fittingly, the video made by the band’s Ben Gray and Ryan Saunders, the accompanying video draws heavily from old school MTV visuals.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 54th Birthday, Peter Salisbury!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates The Verve drummer Peter Salisbury’s 54th birthday.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Swimming Pool Shares Hazy “Wednesday Kinda Weekend”

Split between The Hague and Zürich, Swimming Pool — Klyl Shifroni and Seraina Fässler — can trace their origins back to when the duo met while studying at the Institute of Sonology, where they bonded over a shared passion for songwriting, digital synthesis and code-based composition. The project’s name is derived from a photography series featuring hurricane-damaged backyard pools, which they saw a s a metaphor for the overlooked, the fractured, and the quiet beauty of ruin.

Their collaboration was born from late-night DJ sets in abandoned garages. Those sets saw their sound expanding from instinctive improvisation intoned a layered process sharped by bowed bass textures, processed vocals and subtle sampling techniques. Through a bend of ambient minimalism, lo-fi and punk, the pair blend experimental electronics and emotionally direct songwriting to not only evoke a world that is both carefully constructed and deeply vulnerable, but also allows them to balance intimacy with abstraction and warmth with fracture.

The duo’s recently released EP Line Cuts is a slow-burning exploration of the tension between clarity and distortion, closeness and distance. Rather than delivering catharsis, the EP’s material lingers in the uneasy spaces between feelings. focusing on longing, memory, repetition and collapse.

Line Cuts EP‘s latest single “Wednesday Kinda Weekend” is a slow-burning and hazy track that features glistening, reverb-soaked shoegazer-like textures, thumping beats, a supple bass line, thunderous drum cracks serving as a lush and vibey bed for reverb and distortion-drenched vocals. While seemingly channeling Beach House, the song evokes disorientation — a sense of ethereally floating without recognition or acknowledgement of space or time.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Windsor, ON’s Talking Violet Shares “120 Minutes”-era MTV like “In Your Mind”

Windsor, ON-based quartet Talking Violet — Jillian Goyeau (vocals, guitar), Jayden Turnbull (guitar, vocals), Jeremie Brosseau (drums) and Dylan Iannicello (bass) — have quickly developed and established a sound that sees the Canadian outfit seamlessly blending elements of shoegaze, grunge and dream pop into what they’ve dubbed “dreamo.” Thematically, their work touches upon how we wrestle with the grief of personal change — especially in personal experiences.

Talking Violet’s latest single, the Justin Meli-produced, Will Yip-mastered “In Your Mind” is a breezy, 120 Minutes-era MTV-like anthem anchored around swirling shoegazer-like guitars, thunderous drumming and enormous hooks and choruses serving as a lush bed for Goyeau’s yearning delivery. Seemingly channeling The Sundays and Tallies, “In Your Mind” manages to capture a very specific sense of helplessness of loving someone through pain and uncertainty and not knowing what to do — or if you can do anything.

“I’ve had to learn over time that no matter how much you want to help people, so often it’s really out of your hands,” Talking Violet’s Goyeau says. “They have to be the ones to figure things out, but you can do what you can from a supporting line.” Interestingly, the new single continues upon the emotional thread of their recently released sophomore album Everything At Once, continuing to draw from the grief and complications of interpersonal change ,. “These tracks draw on a lot of grief of change, most specifically, the grief of relationship changes in our lives,” Goyeau explains. “I was going through changes that I now see as necessary but were incredibly painful at the time. It made me realize how much I had depended on my relationships with others for my identity. I had to slowly relearn who I was—and spent the next few years healing my people-pleasing baseline. It’s still something I work on every day.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: she’s green Shares Shimmering and Bittersweet “Willow”

Minneapolis-based outfit she’s green — Zofia Smith (vocals), Liam Armstrong (guitar), Raimes Lucas (guitar), Teddy Nordvold (guitar) and Kevin Seeback (drums) — specialize in crafting dreamy soundscapes that transport the listener to scenes of soft summer rain and fields of swaying wheat, infused with raw emotional intensity. 

With the release of their earliest singles “river” and “smile again,” the Minneapolis-based quintet quickly became a staple within the Midwestern alternative scene, while earning praise from Complex, Star Tribune and The Current. Their debut EP, 2023’s Wisteria saw the band establishing an honest and exploratory songwriting process and a reputation for being a force in the world of sonic surrealism. Adding to a growing profile, the rising Minnesotans have supported their material with tours throughout the Midwest and East Coast with the likes of Hotline TNT, Glixen, Friko and others. 

Earlier this year, she’s green recently signed to New York-based Photo Finish Records, who will be releasing the band’s highly-anticipated Henry Stoehr-sophomore EP Chrysalis on August 15, 2025. The EP will feature the previously released  Souvlaki-era Slowdive-like “Graze,” which I wrote about earlier this year.

The EP’s third and latest single “Willow” is a shimmering, rousing The Sundays-meets-A Storm in Heaven-like showcasing the band’s penchant for rousingly anthemic hooks and choruses paired with Zofia Smith’s dreamy and ethereal delivery floating over thunderous drumming and swirling and hazy, shoegazer guitar textures. While arguably being one of the more energetic songs on the new EP, “Willow” is underpinned by a bittersweet and uneasy longing over something that you’re slowly losing — and that you can’t possibly stop.

“‘Willow’ reflects on our dying relationship with the natural world—a relationship that’s not always loving, but formative nonetheless,” the band explains. “It’s an energetic song that we love playing live.”

The accompanying video features the band’s frontperson Zofia Smith wandering through a forest, looking towards the dappled light shining through the tree canopy. While there’s longing and sadness in there voice, the light on her face also suggest that there’s hope just on the other side. But as the video ends, the viewer’s viewpoint becomes increasingly blurry as she sings about uncertainty and melancholy.

singer/songwriters by William Ruben Helms
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News/Announcements: FME Announces 2025 Venue Showcase Lineups

FME announces the venue showcase lineups for the 2025 edition.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Tan Cologne Team Up With Trentemøller on a Minimalist and Dreamy Rework of “In Resin”

Enigmatic Taos, NM-based duo Tan Cologne — Lauren Green and Marissa Macias — released their third album Unknown Beyond last month through Labrador Records. Unlike their previously released material, Unknown Beyond sees Green and Macias reaching for the heavens and an intangible greater existence; the infinite and unexplainable while embracing the beauty of timeless uncertainty. 

Written, performed and recorded entirely by the duo at their Taos, New Mexico-based home, the album found the pair seeking solitude and retreat as they attempted to come to terms with the personal loss of family, friends and childhood homes — within a relatively short period of time. The album’s creative process quickly became a therapeutic outlet for grieving, dealing, changing and understanding new life transitions and ways of being, with each track being a part of the story of the entire album. 

The album’s material is centered around a more spiritual process. “We looked for signs and signals during the recording process” the duo says in press notes. “If we saw a shooting star, imagined a fire burning on a hill, or remembered an old satellite dish in someone’s yard, we explored that lyrically. Those visual guides became our pathways to the album. They were the signs to move forward.”

Interweaving and layering hypnotic beats, hazy shoegazer textures, abstract live drum patterns and sounds of searching for signals — of comfort and communication — from the invisible web, Unknown Beyond may arguably be their most immersive and emotive work to date. 

In the lead up to the album’s I written about three of the album’s previously release singles, “Cloud of Mirrors,” “Infinity“ and “Cool Star.”

The duo recently teamed up with Trentemøller on a reworking of Unknown Beyond closing track “In Resin.” The album track is a slow-burning and hazy tune featuring swirling, almost painterly, reverb-drenched, shoegazer guitar textures. While recalling A Storm In Heaven, the arrangement serves as a lush bed for Green’s and Macias’ dreamily ethereal harmonies.

The Trentemøller reworking retains the duo’s dreamily ethereal harmonies but replaces most of the shoegazer guitar textures with a looping, twinkling and eerily beautiful piano figure, which emphasizes the mysterious vibe of the song while giving it an old-timey feel and sound.

“In Resin” encapsulates the entire project thematically, as well as the duo’s experiences over the lat few years. “It talks about being everything once and then being it all again, and living several lives at the same time,” the band says. “‘In Resin’ is a special track that we spiritually found ourselves oscillating between leaving it as a rare gem to discover on the album or presenting as a focus,” they continue. “We opted for the mystery, but Trentemøller dove into it.”
 
The band expands, “A few years ago, Trentemøller connected with us and our sound. Now into the present and future, he offered to rework one of our tracks from our new album and selected ‘In Resin.’ He finished the new interpretation while we were on tour together in Europe. We feel our music is a communication and we are honored to continue ‘In Resin’’s sonic conversation with Trentemøller.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Besnard Lakes Share Woozy “In Hollywood”

Acclaimed and beloved Montréal-based shoegazers The Besnard Lakes — husband and wife Jace Lasek and Olga Goreas, along with Kevin Laing, Gabriel Lambert and Sheenah Ko — recently announced their seventh album, The Besnard Lakes Are the Ghost Nation. “I feel like it’s a very formidable title, symbolic of the times,” the band’s Jace Lasek says. “It’s talking about the death of nations, the threat of Canada being the 51st state. There is the desire to be left alone, to let community be community, all of those things that feel like they might be under siege; that’s what the ghost nation is.”

Slated for an October 10, 2025 release through Full Time Hobby, The Besnard Lakes Are the Ghost Nation was recorded at Lost River Studios. During the course of the five-day session, the band experienced creative solitude in the woods with some of their family members accompanying them while the band experimenting and compiled the album’s material. The Besnard Lakes’ forthcoming seventh album reportedly sees them creating their most playful yet thoughtful and heartfelt songs to date.

The acclaimed Canadian shoegazers admit that this was partly in response to 2021’s The Besnard Lakes Are the Last of the Great Thunderstorm Warnings. “The last album was so heavy,” the band’s Jace Lasek explains. “There was so much weight and heavy themes, like my dad dying. It was just death everywhere on that record. This album doesn’t really seem to be that. To me, it seems very playful.”

The Besnard Lakes Are the Ghost Nation‘s first single “In Hollywood” is a slow-burning dirge anchored around woozy, reverb-drenched guitars, the Montréal-based band’s penchant for rousingly anthemic hooks paired with dreamy vocals and a twangy, psilocybin-tinged solo. Sonically, “In Hollywood” sounds a bit like a synthesis of 2010’s The Besnard Lakes Are the Roaring Night and The Besnard Lakes Are the Last of the Great Thunderstorm Warnings but with a woozy, synth-driven coda.

As the band’s Olga Goreas explains, “The first cut lifted from the album ‘In Hollywood’ dates back to 2010 and…are the Roaring Night era. It’s a melody that was circulating in Jace’s mind for many years. Unable to let it go, Jace sat with it and finally brought it to light. Written in a dropped D tuning, ‘In Hollywood’ is atypical in the Besnard canon. Some very creative synth work from Sheenah in the outro. A beautifully bizarre guitar solo from Gabriel. This one shows off Jace’s vocal stylings and has an intriguing lyrical journey for the listener to discover.”

The accompanying video features edited, old-timey, Super 8 and black and white footage of Golden Era Hollywood that emphasizes the dreamy vibe of the song.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Slow Crush Shares Stormy and Swooning “While You Dream Vividly”

After a frenetic and overwhelming touring schedule to support their first two albums, 2018’s Aurora and 2021’s Hush, the acclaimed Belgian shoegazers Slow Crush — Isa Holliday (vocals, bass), Frederik Meeuwis, Jelle Ronsmans (guitar) and Nic Placlé — took a couple years off from touring, which allowed the quartet the space to breathe and create new material.

Slow Crush’s highly-anticipated third album, Thirst is slated for an August 29, 2025 release through Pure Noise Records. Recorded at Southampton, UK-based The Ranch, the Lewis Johns-produced album reportedly sees the band’s dynamic textures, propulsive rhythms and gauzy riffs shimmer as brightly as ever — but the album sees the band adding a bit more grit and grime to their sound. The album features arguably the heaviest riffs they’ve ever recorded, as well as some of Holliday’s dreamiest and most vulnerable vocals to date. During the recording process, there were sons she couldn’t record without dissolving into tears.

Thirst‘s overacting theme is what Holliday describes as “the romance of being with a loved one.” Although being away from loved ones for long periods of time might put a strain on that relationship, the return can feel euphoric and the connection can be feel almost like it were brand new. Throughout the album, the members of Slow Crush set out to create the feeling of being tethered yet simultaneously weightless, absorbed in the beauty of quiet moments with that special someone.

“We want people to let themselves go and feel embraced by the music, so that they can experience it in 4D,.” Slow Crush’s Isa Holliday explains. “That’s what we hear a lot from people who come to see us live, or people who’ve listened to our previous albums, is that we take them to another dimension. I think that’s something that we miss in this day and age with everything that’s going on in the world, making us very aware of everything outside, but not allowing us to just be in the moment as much as you should. We want to let people take a moment for themselves and let the music take them wherever they would like to go.”

Thirst‘s first single “While You Dream Vividly” is a slow-burning and hypnotic tune anchored around swirling and painterly guitar textures, thunderous drumming that serve as a stormy bed for Holliday’s ethereal and yearning delivery singing “true blue” lyrics like an echoing promise. The result is to leave the listener swooning and desperately yearning — seemingly forever.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Tan Cologne Shares Celestial “Cool Star”

Enigmatic Taos, NM-based duo Tan Cologne — Lauren Green and Marissa Macias — have released work rooted in terrestrial and earthen landscapes: Their debut, 2020’s Cave Vaults on the Moon in New Mexico explored the topography of cultures and subcultures on the surface of New Mexico. Their sophomore album, 2022’s Earth Visions of Water Spaces was inspired by past, present and future water and waterways, embodying the power of water and how it has shaped our planet. 2023’s Pescetrullo (soundscapes) captured a series of on-site instrumental and field recordings made in the remote architectural Pescetrullo in Puglia, Italy, immortalizing the contrasts of ancient buildings, new bold structures, insects, and lapping water of the surrounding environment.

The New Mexico-based duo’s third album Unknown Beyond is slated for a Friday release through Labrador Records. Unlike their previously released material, Unknown Beyond sees Green and Macias reaching for the heavens and an intangible greater existence; the infinite and unexplainable while embracing the beauty of timeless uncertainty. 

Written, performed and recorded entirely by the duo at their Taos, New Mexico-based home, the album found the pair seeking solitude and retreat as they attempted to come to terms with the personal loss of family, friends and childhood homes — within a relatively short period of time. The album’s creative process quickly became a therapeutic outlet for grieving, dealing, changing and understanding new life transitions and ways of being, with each track being a part of the story of the entire album. 

The album reportedly sees Green and Macias seeking a more spiritual process. “We looked for signs and signals during the recording process” they say. “If we saw a shooting star, imagined a fire burning on a hill, or remembered an old satellite dish in someone’s yard, we explored that lyrically. Those visual guides became our pathways to the album. They were the signs to move forward.”

Interweaving and layering hypnotic beats, hazy shoegazer textures, abstract live drum patterns and sounds of searching for signals — of comfort and communication — from the invisible web, Unknown Beyond may arguably be their most immersive and emotive work to date. 

In the lead up to the album’s release later this week, I’ve written about two of the album’s previously release singles, “Cloud of Mirrors,” and “Infinity.“

The album’s third and final pre-release single, the slow-burning and celestial album opening track “Cool Star” features swelling, billowing and swirling guitar textures serving as a lush bed for the duo’s dreamily delivered lyrics describing seeing a shooting star — and the belief act that you can communicate with the beyond; that there are signs and signals all over, if you’re paying attention. “It’s also our sensory transmission of the shade, tide, and temperature shift from the moon and planets as they orbit, and the coolness and pull made by them,” they add. 

The accompanying video features lost, found and archived imagery that’s be been carefully edited and stitched together by filmmaker and frequent collaborator Carly Short. Fittingly, it features cosmic imagery, cars drag racing and more.
 
The duo have a handful of Stateside dates, which you can check out below.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: 802 Shares Glittering and Rousingly Anthemic “H.I.T.S.”

At one point, Andreas “Slowoff” Asingh was considered one of the most critically acclaimed electronic artists in Denmark, working with internationally renowned artists like Raekwon while touring the world.

Eventually, life’s twist and turns took Asingh back to his roots, the Danish countryside of Mols Bjerge. Back in 2022, Asingh met Emil Sørensen and Kristian Holbæk, two young dudes making names for themselves in the country’s underground metal scene. When the trio started 802, they weren’t an obvious musical match; but they bonded over their desire to create a unique sound that meshes elements of classic heavy metal, hazy shoegazer texture and ghostly synth pop with unashamedly catchy melodies. According to the band, the 802 world is ruled by musical anarchy and is a place for headbangers and pop lovers to unite. 

The trio’s first ever live show was at 2023’s New Colossus Festival New Colossus Festival, which I actually managed to catch. And since then the Danish outfit has released a small handful of singles that have received attention across Denmark and globally: Their first two, “My Girl” and “22 (Velvet Vampire)” were featured in award-winning horror shorts.

Their third single, last year’s “1986,” saw the Danish trio firmly cementing their sound: Dense layers of crunchy metal riffage and thunderous drumming that brings Kill ‘Em All, Ride the Lightning and Master of Puppets-era Metallica to mind paired with twinkling and atmospheric synths that may remind shoegazers of Chicago‘s Lightfoils, BLACKSTONE RNGRS, Hong Kong‘s Lucid Express and Montréal‘s Bodywash and some rousingly anthemic, shout-along worthy hooks and choruses.

The trio then took their hook-driven synthesis of metal, shoegaze and pop to some of Scandinavia’s biggest festivals, including Copenhell and Roskilde. Adding to a big year, the trio received New Artist of the Year and New Live Artist of the Year nominations at the Den Hårde Tone, Denmark’s metal awards, winning a New Artist of the Year award.

Building upon the growing buzz surrounding the Danish metal outfit, they closed out 2024 with “Princess,” which saw the band pairing Metallica-like chug with glittering synth arpeggios and rousingly anthemic hooks and choruses in what may arguably be their most dance floor friendly song to date.

“H.I.T.S.,” the Danish trio’s fifth single sees the band pairing Metallica and Def Leppard-like power chord bombast with woozily futuristic synths, their uncannily unerring knack for rousingly anthemic hooks and choruses and dreamily yearning melodies. While furthering the sound that has garnered international attention, the Danish trio have managed to consistently craft material that hits hard and is remarkably accessible.

“Even though the world is fucked, you can still believe in the good. Believe that there is a hole in the sky somewhere, where light and good karma are just waiting to pour out and defeat the evil,” 802’s Andreas Asingh says. “802 is a mixture of the dark and the light – the outsider who wants to be part of the community. It’s a constant dynamic that we celebrate in ‘H.I.T.S.'”

Directed by Casper Balslev, the accompanying video for “H.I.T.S.” cements the song’s overarching theme, with a visual battle of good versus evil centered around a kidnapper and torturer and an abused victim, a car and rope. In the end, karma wins out.