Tag: shoegaze

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Death Drive Teams Up with Dogs on Shady Lane’s Tori Hall on Dreamy “Let The Wound Heal”

Brooklyn-based electro shoegaze outfit Death Drive‘s latest single, the recently released “Let the Wound Heal,” features Dogs on Shady Lane‘s Tori Hall. Coming on the heels of last September’s split EP with Yuurusu, A Bit Closer to Heaven, “Let the Wound Heal” pairs Hall’s ethereal and plaintive delivery with a lush retro-futuristic leaning production featuring twinkling synths, swirling guitar textures, live drumming and a supple bass line.

While influenced by a wide range of influences including The Postal Service and Radiohead, the song sonically reminds me a bit of BLACKSTONE RNGRS, No Swoon, The Orielles‘ recent output and Death By Piano. The song’s lyrics, which were written by Hall, were inspired by the monologue delivered by Rutger Hauer’s character Roy Batty in the climax of the 1982 film Blade Runner.

“The demo was named ‘harrisonfordbladerunner,'” Death Drive bandleader and sampler Raj explains. ” That’s where the idea took off for Tori with the lyrics, and I named it that because that was the poster in front of me in the room where we finished the demo.”

Death Drive will celebrate the release of their new single at The Woodshop in Brooklyn on April 4th, alongside Holiem, Blood Estate, and MKUltra.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Heaven Shares Rousingly Anthemic “Dream Aloud”

New York-based shoegazers Heaven was founded in the wake of its founding members Matt Sumrow (vocals, guitar) and Mikey Jones (drums) touring and recording with Dean and Britta, Swervedriver, Ambulance LTD, Caveman, The Comas, The Lemonheads and a lengthy list of others. With the addition of their newest member, Sonia Manalili, the shoegazer trio’s third album Dream Aloud officially released today through Little Cloud Records.

The band’s third album is the trio’s most somnambulistic effort to date. Recorded here in NYC with Jonathan Krienik, the album features guest spots from Longwave’s and Wah Together‘s Steve Schlitz. 

“The record was conceived in the dark depths of the pandemic, when all we could do was stay at home and work on projects and watch the end of the world on TV,” Heaven’s Matt Sumrow explains. “It was created as a vision of hope and dreams, an escape from the reality we were in. It’s also a deliberate move back to a DIY way of making music. Realizing that facing the apocalypse, you have to rely on yourself to make things happen, make art happen, conjure your love and dreams.”

In the lead-up to the album’s release today, I wrote about two of the album’s previously released singles:

  • “I Need You More Somehow,” a hook-driven, slick synthesis of Heroes-era Bowie, New Zealand jangle pop paired with bursts of feedback and Sumrow’s longing vocal. “Both at home on the beach in California or a seedy underground nightclub in Glasgow or Berlin, the song layers two worlds,” Heaven’s Matt Sumrow says. “The lyrics are purposefully ambiguous, needing more of someone and longing for more connection, but also sounding content and blissful with the present situation at the same time.”

  • “The Fire You Know,” a brooding and melancholy song that reminds me a bit of Ocean Rain-era Echo and the Bunnymen and Psychedelic Furs with a lush string arrangement from cellist Megan LaMarca and propulsive drumming that drives the song from its fever dream-like verses to a chugging hook and dreamy coda. Thematically, the song touches upon deeply held secrets, fated beliefs and madness which, fittingly emphasize the song’s swooningly Romantic vibe. 

Dream Aloud’s latest single, album title track “Dream Aloud” is a dreamy mix of jangle pop, 90s alt rock and shoegaze, anchored around Sumrow’s uncanny knack for crafting rousingly anthemic hooks with earnest, nostalgia-inducing lyricism. “I wrote this song in the wee hours of the morning, recording it into my phone,” Sumrow recalls. “Honestly, I don’t even remember writing it. I found it amongst a bunch of other song sketches. It was a hushed lullaby at first, but we turned it into a rocker. I guess if I was trying to explain it, lyrically it’s a Tibetan sand mandala, building something beautiful then destroying it.”

Continuing an ongoing collaboration with director Jeska Sand, the accompanying video for “Dream Aloud” stars Jacqueline Valenti as lone, angel wing-wearing figure wandering around the bars and streets of East Village before heading off to Coney Island as the sun rises. The video captures moments of loneliness, discovery, reflection and dreamlike observation through the city’s shift between neon and daylight.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 63rd Birthday, Simon Raymonde!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Simon Raymonde’s 63rd birthday.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Fotoform Shares Lush and Woozy “Grief is a Garden”

Deriving their name from a mid-century, avant-garde photography movement, Seattle-based post punk outfit Fotoform — longtime collaborators and married couple Kim House (bass, vocals, synths) and Geoffrey Cox (guitar), along with  Death Cab for Cutie‘s and The Long Winters‘ Michael Schorr (drums) — can trace their origins back to the formation of a previous project,  the goth-adjacent dream pop act C’est la Mort, which formed shortly after House and Cox married. 

Specializing in what they dubbed “pointy-shoegaze,” C’est la Mort released their full-length debut through their own Dismal Nitch label, as well as various compilation tracks, including a limited split 7 inch with Stars for American Laundromat‘s The Smiths‘ tribute Please Please Please. After a series of lineup changes, House and Cox re-emerged as Fotoform in late 2016. 

House and Cox released their Fotoform self-titled debut in 2017. Supported with tours of the West Coast and Europe, the album received airplay and praise both locally and nationally: Album single “I Know You’re Charming” was featured as a KEXP Song of The Day. The self-titled album was voted as one of KEXP Listeners’ Top 90.3 Albums of 2017 and it landed on several year-end lists, including The Big Takeover and Part-Time Punks. 

Building upon a growing profile, the band followed up with 2018’s Part-Time Punks EP, which was selected as one of The Big Takeover’s EPs of 2018. Schorr joined the band back in 2019 and by the following year, they released two benefit singles as a newly minted trio “Yves Klein Blue,” which was recored for voter outreach and the Christmas-themed “They Say It’s Always Lonely” to benefit local food banks. Both singles found the trio expanding upon their sound with the addition of synths. 

In early 2020, the trio went into the studio with Evan Foster to record the material for their sophomore album, Horizons. Recording sessions were interrupted as a result of COVID-19 pandemic-enforced quarantines and restrictions and continued a year later with Foster and Matt Bayles recording drum parts. The album saw the band pivoting from the towering wall of guitars-driven sound of their previously released work and towards a much more nuanced sound that drew equally from shoegaze, dream pop and post-punk with the band continuing to pair synths with layers of guitars and driving bass lines.

The Seattle-based trio’s third album Grief is a Garden (Forever in Bloom) is slated for an April 18, 2025 release. The album reportedly sees the band’s evolving yet again, with the band further refining their long-held crystalline sound into a lush and introspective soundscape that blends the emotional weight of post-punk with the ethereal beauty of shoegaze with the album’s material increasingly drawing from classic 4AD heyday artists like This Moral Coil, Pale Saints and Lush.

The album’s material thematically touches upon loss, change, heartache, pain and transformation, while tackling the big existential questions. The album, also features some of the band’s most vulnerable and disarmingly honest lyrics of their growing catalog.

Album title track “Grief is a Garden,’ is a brooding slow-burning tune anchored around shimmering and reverb-drenched guitars, Kim House’s yearning and ethereal delivery paired with a soaring hook and chorus. Sounding a bit like Garlands-era Cocteau Twins and 4AD Records classic heyday period, “Grief is a Garden” sees the band thematically into delving deeply into personal themes of grief, loss, and in time, gradual acceptance.

“The title track to our upcoming album, ‘Grief is a Garden’ reflects on the enduring, ever-evolving nature of grief and how it changes over time,” Fotoform’s Kim House explains. “Grief blooms, decays and nourishes itself, embodying love, beauty, pain and transformation. As we move through life, we accumulate grief, and the song contemplates the evolving nature of our relationship to loss and love, as grief becomes a part of us, forever changing us and informing our new selves as we continue with life after loss.

“My brother Jeff passed away suddenly and unexpectedly at the end of February, right after we released our first single. I am still trying to absorb the devastating reality that he is gone. I never could have imagined I would lose another brother just as we are starting to release songs off our album, which is centered around grief, loss, resilience and healing. The lyric ‘Waves keep crashing, unforeseen, losing someone is never what it seems‘ has been swirling around me as I feel blindsided by the loss of my brother. We’d been planning on talking about grief with the new record, but it’s another thing to suddenly find yourself newly grieving again. 

“The longing for answers to life’s unknowable questions is palpable throughout this song, as I’ve wrestled with existential doubts since childhood, questioning everything from the stories I was raised with to the mysteries of life and death itself. ‘Into the ether, we all call out‘ is a reference to the unknowable place we enter when we die – an acknowledgement and a cry for connection.

Loved ones who touch our souls meld with our spirit and never leave us. Tethers to those we’ve lost surround us when we open our hearts. We often feel these connections after we lose someone: a certain song comes on the radio or a shared symbol appears at the most poignant time. Heightened awareness of these synchronicities tethers us to those we’ve lost.

“Grief, so deeply personal yet also universal, is hanging heavy for so many of us these days. We all find ourselves in mourning, whether for loved ones, the erosion of societal values, social injustice, dismantling of democracy, upheaval from natural disasters and the intensifying climate crisis, loss of relationships, former versions of ourselves after injury and disability and anticipatory grief of what’s to come – the list is endless.

Creating this album was a ritual in reflecting on grief, sitting with it, metabolizing, and letting it sink into all the cracks and crevices, fully absorbing grief to understand – and eventually release – some of its tight hold / energy. As I return to this familiar and tender state of fresh sorrow and loss, I take comfort in the knowledge that with time, grief will soften around the edges and the warmth of love will reclaim its position in the foreground.”

Directed by Erik Foster, the accompanying video for “Grief is a Garden” is a lush and woozy fever dream shot in a verdant garden that would have been perfect in an Edgar Allan Poe short story or in a Mary Shelley novel.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: San Antonio’s Beware Of Dog Shares Churning “Cold”

Emerging San Antonio-based shoegazer trio Beware Of Dog — Jakob Barrios (guitar/vocals), Liseth Rodriguez (drums), and Raul Martinez (bass) — recently released their fourth and latest single, “Cold.” Recorded, tracked and mixed at the band’s home studio, “Cold” to my ears brings a churning synthesis of Glixen, Lightfoils and Slowdive to mind while evoking a blusteringly cold wind that enters your coat, right at the seams and makes you shiver.

The new single will appear on the San Antonio-based band’s debut EP Junkyard, which is slated for release in May. But in the meantime, they will be playing a “Cold” all-ages release show at San Antonio’s The Starlighter.

Photography by William Ruben Helms
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Live Concert Photography: Cigarettes for Breakfast with Book/Spirit and Clone at Trans-Pecos 2/21/25

Live concert photography of Cigarettes for Breakfast with Book/Spirit and Clone at Trans-Pecos last month.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Miki Berenyi Trio Shares Dance Floor Friendly “Big I Am”

Miki Berenyi Trio features an acclaimed and accomplished group of artists:

  • Miki Berenyi (vocals/ guitar), a founding member, frontperson and rhythm guitarist of acclaimed and iconic shoegazer outfit Lush — and the founder and frontperson of acclaimed outfit Piroshka

  • Kevin “Moose” McKillop (guitar), a founding member of acclaimed shoegazers Moose, Berenyi’s spouse and Piroshka bandmate 

  • Oliver Cherer (bass)

The band is named after its lead singer — a direct way to convey the presence of former Lush frontperson Miki Berenyi, one of the most beloved figures and recognizable faces of 1990s alternative rock and shoeegaze. Their highly-anticipated full-length debut, Tripla derives it name from the Hungarian word for “triple” acknowledging that the band’s songwriting is entirely a three-way collaboration.

Slated for an April 4, 2025 release through Bella Union, the trio’s debut album, is reportedly a landmark album for the acclaimed trio that sees the trio crafting a rich and lushly layered, imaginative and uniquely slanted take on dream pop that features an often euphoric and occasionally melancholic mix of guitars and electronics paired with Berenyi’s imitable vocal and a worldview that vacillates between profound, yearning and abrasive — perhaps from lived-in experience and wisdom.

Interestingly, despite the album’s sophisticated sound, the trio have done so with a focus on the basics, not only recording at home, but driving around in a car packed with their gear, loading in and out of venues themselves — much like in the old days. “There is something very ‘grass roots’ about what we’re doing,” Miki Berenyi Trio’s Miki Berenyi says.  “There’s no point following the ‘announce the album, then tour, then record the next album’ route – we just want to wring as much enjoyment out of this as we can, and hope that it resonates somewhere!”

Tripla‘s latest single “Big I Am” sees the trio pairing dance floor New Wave-meets-electro pop beats, shoegazer textures and a slick motorik groove but the song eviscerates the pretend alpha/macho aggression of social media creeps like Andrew Tate and others, revealing that they’re insecure, frightened buffoons.

“I’ve witnessed 50+ years of the trends in masculinity and frankly, nothing much changes – as ever, there are good men and there are shit men, and there are boys who can be misguided but easily mature into the best of their sex,” Miki Berenyi says. “But this latest incarnation of ‘winning’ the sex war is a laughably infantile and willfully regressive new low.”

Directed by Sébastien Faits-Divers, the accompanying video was filmed at the Consortium Museum (Contemporary Art Center) in Dijon, France, in one of the Isabella Ducrot “Profusione” exhibition rooms, and features the band performing the song and includes some trippy fish-eye lens shots.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Heaven Returns with Brooding and Cinematic “The Fire You Know”

New York-based shoegazers Heaven was founded in the wake of its founding members Matt Sumrow (vocals, guitar) and Mikey Jones (drums) touring and recording with Dean and Britta, Swervedriver, Ambulance LTD, Caveman, The Comas, The Lemonheads and a lengthy list of others. With the addition of their newest member, Sonia Manalili, the shoegazer trio are gearing up to release their first full-length album in over seven years, their third album, Dream Aloud. 

Slated for an April 4, 2025 release through Little Cloud Records, Dream Aloud is reportedly the New York-based trio’s most somnambulistic album to date. The album, which was recorded here in New York with Jonathan Krienik, features a guest spot from Longwave’s and Wah Together‘s Steve Schlitz. 

Earlier this year, I wrote about album single “I Need You More Somehow,” a track that’s a hook-driven, slick synthesis of Heroes-era Bowie, New Zealand jangle pop paired with bursts of feedback and Sumrow’s longing vocal. “Both at home on the beach in California or a seedy underground nightclub in Glasgow or Berlin, the song layers two worlds,” Heaven’s Matt Sumrow says. “The lyrics are purposefully ambiguous, needing more of someone and longing for more connection, but also sounding content and blissful with the present situation at the same time.”

Dream Aloud’s fourth and latest single “The Fire You Know” is a brooding and melancholy song that reminds me a bit of Ocean Rain-era Echo and the Bunnymen and Psychedelic Furs with a lush string arrangement from cellist Megan LaMarca and propulsive drumming that drives the song from its fever dream-like verses to a chugging hook and dreamy coda. Thematically, the song touches upon deeply held secrets, fated beliefs and madness which, fittingly emphasize the song’s swooningly Romantic vibe.

Directed and shot by Jeska Sand, the video for “The Fire You Know was shot in and around an early 20th century farmhouse in Narrowsburg, NY follows the trio in a snow-covered landscape reminiscent of U2‘s “New Year’s Day” before entering the old farmhouse and going mad.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: she’s green Shares “120 Minutes” MTV-like “Graze”

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.

she’s green recently signed to New York-based Photo Finish Records, who released the Henry Stoehr-produced “Graze,” the first bit of new material since Wisteria EP. Featuring glistening and swirling, reverb-soaked guitar textures, Smith’s dreamily ethereal vocal, strummed acoustic guitar for the song’s first half, an explosive feedback and fuzzy power-chord driven middle section and a placid, almost folksy strummed acoustic guitar coda, “Graze” recalls Souvlaki-era Slowdive while evoking an aching longing.

“This song is about feeling trapped in a distant memory and longing to find a way out,” she’s green says about “Graze.” “The only way to escape seems to be facing it head-on and finally getting the release you need.”

The accompanying video for “Graze,” features the band’s Zofia Smith serenely swirling around a summery verdant forest, near one of their home state’s many lakes, with the sun dappling off the rippling water. As the song swells with intensity, the visuals become trippier and more frenzied, urgent and mind-bending. As a child of the 80s and 90s, this one brought back fond memories of 120 Minutes-era MTV.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Cigarettes for Breakfast Shares Churning and Anthemic “Glue”

Cigarettes for Breakfast is the bedroom project of Philadelphia-based singer/songwriter and musician Matt Whiteford and an ever-changing cast of bandmembers and collaborators. The project has made a name for itself on the DIY and shoegaze scenes through crating lush soundscapes and raw, emotive, fuzzed-out performances that capture the essence of classic sheogaze and dream pop — but with their own, unique take and sensibility.

The Philadelphia-based project has shared stages with acts like Slow Crush, The Asteroid No. 4, Mahogany and a growing list of others. And building upon a growing profile, their full-length debut, 2023’s Join the Circus, an effort that showcased their ability to take the listener on a journey while exploring themes of love, loss and self-discovery garnered a comparison to The Jesus and Mary Chain from Rolling Stone.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: High. Returns with Swooning and Anthemic “Flowers”

Boonton, NJ-based shoegazers High. can trace their origins back to 2021 when Christian Castan (vocals, guitar) and Bridget Bakie (bass, vocals) met while playing across the Garden State’s DIY and college circuit. During that time, Bakie built and developed a reputation as “The Queen of The Quarter Note,” and Casten as an unforgettable guitarist. After the pair had a stint playing in another band together, they longed for a project that would be their sole creative focus and could tour as far as wide as possible.

A couple of weeks after adding Jack Miller (drums) and Danny Zavala (guitar), the newly-minted quartet made their live debut at Saint Vitus Bar. They followed up with shows across the Tristate DIY circuit.

The New Jersey-based quartet’s highly-anticipated Matthew Molnar-produced sophomore EP Come Back Down officially dropped today. The EP’s first sessions started in June 2023 when the band, along with Molnar went to Chairlift‘s Patrick Wimberly‘s Greenpoint studio to test new material with engineer Sam Darwish. They also brought tracks to Shane Furst and his Cloud Factory Recording to review their recent work and begin the next stages of completion. 

Come Back Down marks the beginning of the band’s partnership with Kanine Records — and a key period in the band’s development. With a greater expression of sonic range, the EP sees the band offering more noise, more hooks, more heaviness and much more emotion: The sad is much sadder and the love is more swooningly in love. There are more song about loss and being lost. For the band, it’s the culmination of their growth after the release of their well-received debut EP Bomber, which was released through Julia’s War and Suburban Creep.

Last fall, the band took a break from the sessions to do a week-long tour with Austin-based outfit STAB, as well as opening slots for DIIV, Glare, Lowertown, A Place To Bury Strangers, as well as a Midwest run with Chicago’s Smut. After touring across the nation, the band finished the EP with Jeff Ziegler at his Philadelphia-based Uniform Recording. Zeigler’s work on Nothing.’s Guilty of Everything has been a major inspiration for the New Jersey-based group. 

In the lead-up to the EP’s release, I wrote about two of its previously released singles:

  • “In A Hole,” a decidedly 120 Minutes MTV-era take on shoegaze anchored around a towering wall of stormy guitars, thunderous drumming and ethereal boy-girl harmonies. The song’s brooding soundscape evokes the stormy emotions, trauma and unease that inspired it — but also the comfort of finding friendship and a community that truly understands where you’re coming from. “’In A Hole’ is inspired by meeting our group of friends,” High.’s Christian Castan explains. “It’s about being depressed and the people close to you dragging you out of it. It’s about the peace and belonging I used to dream about during childhood trauma and finally finding it. There’s a lyric – ‘These are the new stars, they burst alive.’  It’s about living life at its best and never wanting that feeling to end.”

  • “Catcher” which continued a run of 120 Minutes MTV-like shoegaze, much like its immediate predecessor while featuring remarkably blissed out choruses and hooks. Arguably one of the most swoon worthy songs of the New Jersey shoegazers growing catalog, “Catcher” is anchored around deeply introspective lyrics tackling grief with a wisdom that belies their relative youth. “I came to the band with the structure chords and bassline of this song, I am very attached to the music personally. Then, Christian wrote lyrics over it that have massive significance to him,” the band’s Bridget Bakie says. “’Catcher’ explores the depths of grief and the unwavering hope that binds us to those we’ve lost,” the band’s Castan adds.

To celebrate the release of their sophomore EP, the New Jersey-based shogazers shared videos for EP singles “Flowers” and “Dead,” directed by Luke Carr. Right now, I’m going to talk about “Flowers,” an urgent and swooning song featuring swirling, feedback-driven guitar textures, a propulsive rhythm section, rousingly anthemic hooks and choruses serving as a lush yet subtly stormy bed for Casten’s yearning delivery.

The accompanying video follows the band, presumably on tour, heading down to Atlantic City to gamble and party with a collection of friends, followed by a contemplative late night hang on the beach until sunrise.