Tag: shoegaze

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Heaven Shares Hook-Driven and Yearning “I Need You More Somehow”

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.

The album’s second and latest single “I Need You More Somehow” strikes me as sounding a bit like 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.”

Filmed at Mercury Lounge, the accompanying video for “I Need You More Somehow” was specifically shot and edited to resemble 80s and 80s video footage, CCTV or straight-to-home-video-like footage, being a loving homage to the era of their influences. And throughout the video, the band is seen performing while enveloped in a hazy blue and pink swirling lights.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 63rd Birthday, Robin Guthrie!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Cocteau Twins co-founder Robin Guthrie’s 63rd birthday.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Larmes Noires Shares Shoegazey “L’aurore”

Mathieu Schreyer is a French singer/songwriter and musician, best known for his synth wave project MPKS. His side, solo recording project Larmes Noires is a decided departure from his best known work: Larmes Noires sees Schreyer exploring darker thoughts, much more honest feelings paired with soundscapes inspired by Joy Division, My Bloody Valentine, The Cure and the like, and dreamily delivered vocals.

Since starting Larmes Noires, Schreyer has released a handful of singles, last year’s full-length debut, Les ombres dérangées and the recently released self-produced sophomore album Stigmate. Sonically blending elements of post-rock, shoegaze and darkwave to create an atmospheric and immersive soundscape, the album’s material was crafted as an intimate journey, where each track serves as a raw expression of vulnerability and resilience. And fittingly, the album’s material touches upon themes of melancholy, social isolation, inner strength and resolve — in a deeply personal fashion.

Stigmate‘s latest single “L’aurore,” is a brooding and cinematic track that pairs elements of Souvlaki and A Storm in Heaven-era shoegaze with Collapse Under the Empire-like post-rock paired with Schreyer’s plaintive and ethereal delivery and enormous hooks. At its core, there is a sense of resilience and hope.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The background world Shares Anthemic “it goes like this”

Skövde, Sweden-based indie outfit The background world was founded by primary songwriters Martin Platan (lead guitar) and Hanna Leijon (vocals) back in 2018. The pair met at a local bar and shortly after meeting, decided to start collaborating on a musical project. As they began amassing a collection of songs, they started playing live shows together. But they quickly began to realize that the material they had written — and had been writing — needed to be further fleshed out to fulfill their vision. The duo first recruited two old friends, who the pair had worked with in different projects over the years, Oscar Hjerpe (guitar) and Mikel Åkerman (drums). The band’s first lineup was completed with the addition of high school friends Edwin Muratovic (bass) and Tove Håkansson (backing vocals).

The band went on to release their debut EP 2022’s, It’s about a band. Paradise takes, Live at NSL, which they followed up with a handful of standalone singles that included 2022’s “Gasoline”/”I love you,” and last year’s “Love ends,” along with a list of others. This early batch of material saw the band crafting songs that thematically touched upon addiction, mental health, the search for something better and just the simple things in everyday life.

Since then, the band has gone through a massive lineup change — with the band currently as a trio featuring founding members Platan (guitar, bass), Leijon (vocals, keys) and Marcus Helmner (keys). They’re currently working on their highly anticipated full-length debut, which will feature “Why” and “Love ends,” a lived-in anthem about the dissolution of a relationship that’s slowly petering out to its embittering and inevitable breakup. Sonically, the song brought Til Tuesday‘s “Voices Carry” and Vancouver-based JOVM mainstays FRANKIIE to mind.

The forthcoming album will also feature the Swedish outfit’s latest single “It goes like this,” features what may arguably be the most anthemic hooks and choruses of the band’s growing catalog paired with a earnest, plaintive vocal and a crafted, classic shoegaze-meets-dream pop-meets college radio arrangement. But underneath the shimmering guitars and rousing chorus is a proudly defiant song.

The accompanying video for “It goes like this” features a super saturated VHS-styled visual that follows a woman dressed in white in a forest named
“Paradise.”

women who kick ass by William Ruben Helms
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Live Concert Photography: Slowdive with quannnic at Brooklyn Paramount 11/19/24

Live concert photography of Slowdive with quannnic at Brooklyn Paramount earlier this week.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: 802 Returns with Disco-Tinged Ripper “Princess”

Andreas “Slowoff” Asingh was 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. Although the the members of 802 weren’t an obvious creative musical match, they bonded over their desire to create a sound that meshes elements of classic heavy metal, hazy shoegazer textures 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 show was at last year’s New Colossus Festival. And since then they’ve released three singles that received attention internationally: “My Girl,” and “22 (Velvet Vampire),” which were featured in award-winning horror shorts and “1986.” “1986” saw the Danish trio firmly cementing their sound: dense layers of crunchy metal riffage and thunderous drumming reminiscent of Kill ‘Em All, Ride the Lightning and Master of Puppets-era Metallica, dreamy and incredibly catchy melodies, the sort of twinkling and atmospheric synths that will remind some of shoegazers like Chicago‘s Lightfoils, BLACKSTONE RNGRS, Hong Kong‘s Lucid Express and Montréal-based JOVM mainstays Bodywash paired some rousingly anthemic, raise-your-beer-in-the-air-and-shout-along worthy hooks.
Over the summer, the Danish outfit took their hook-driven mesh of metal and pop to some of Scandinavia’s biggest festival, including Copenhell and Roskilde. The band has also received New Artist of the Year and New Live Artist of the Year nominations at the Danish metal awards, Den Hårde Tone. Building upon the growing momentum surrounding the band, the rising trio share their fourth single “Princess.” “Princess” sees the band pairing a relentlessly propulsive, Metallica-like chug with glistening synth arpeggios and the band’s penchant for enormous, rousingly anthemic hooks and choruses.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Gothenburg’s Ljud & Bild Shares Broodingly Cinematic “Under Vattnet”

Gothenburg-based indie outfit Ljud & Bild was founded by co-frontpeople Karin Pallarp Nilsson (guitar, keys, vocals) and Anders Kjellberg. Expanding into a quartet that features Nillson, Klellberg, Erik Ridelius (keys, bass, percussion, vocals) and Yiva Holmdahl (drums, percussion), the Swedish outfit has become a mainstay in the local scene while developing a sound that meshes elements of shoegaze and krautrock.

The Swedish outfit’s latest single “Under Vattnet” is a brooding and slow burning track anchored around glistening and blocky synths, squiggling reverb-soaked bursts of guitar paired with a tight, driving groove. The song’s arrangement serves as a lush, Beach House-meets-post punk-like bed for Pallarp Nilsson’s and Kjellberg’s dreamy and ethereal harmonies.

“The mood is Twin Peaks for tadpoles and the song was written during a spring afternoon in the forest,” the band explains. “You fall asleep by a stream and disappear in a soft, warm light.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: A Place to Bury Strangers Share a Tense and Uneasy Tale of Conflicted Emotions

New York-based JOVM mainstays A Place to Bury Strangers — currently Oliver Ackermann (vocals, guitar), John Fedowitz (bass) and Sandra Fedowitz (drums) — released their seventh album Synthesizer last month through Dedstrange. 

While Synthesizer is the album’s title, it’s also a physical entity, a synthesizer specifically made for the album — and a synthesizer that you too, can own (in part), if you buy the record on vinyl. The album’s cover art doubles as a circuit board and functional synth for curious and enterprising fans. “It’s pretty messed up, chaotic. But it feels really human,” the band’s Oliver Ackermann says. 

In an era of making music where so little is DIY and so much is left up to AI, never setting foot in a practice room or a home studio, making something that feels deliberately chaotic, messy, and human, is entirely the point. The album celebrates sounds that are spontaneous and natural, the kind of music that can only come from collaboration and community. 

The writing sessions for Synthesizer started in the band’s Queens studio, shortly after the release of 2022’s See Through You. The new lineup which featured Ackermann and his friends John and Sandra Fedowitz was especially inspiring for Ackermann. “It felt like a fresh new thing,” he says. “I wanted to write songs everyone was excited about playing.” 

The album captures the band at a place of reinvention, where they take a carefully honed sound and approach and crack it wide open to gut its then reimagine it. And of course, to ever so slightly reinvent one’s sound, one must also built a new instrument — the synthesizer at the core of the album’s overall sound. 

Synthesizer is arguably one of the band’s most live-sounding albums to date, accurately capturing the rawness and explosiveness of the band in a live setting, which is a fitting for a band that is best in a live setting, where the material takes on a new energy in the presence of a crowd. “We’re artists,” Ackermann says, “Going to shows and bringing that imperfect and beautiful DIY ethos is important.” 

In the lead-up to the album’s release, I’ve written about three of the album’s previously released singles: 

  • “Disgust,” an eardrum shattering aural assault, anchored around explosive wailing feedback and distortion pedaled guitar lines paired with a relentles motorik groove featuring an arpeggiated bass line weaving in and out. But there’s subtle refinements, including some of the most rousingly anthemic, mosh pit friendly choruses and hooks I’ve heard from the band in some time. “‘Disgust’ is a song I wrote that was inspired by the way I used to perform ‘Got That Feeling,’ a song by my old band Skywave,” Ackermann explains. “There was a long riding open note on the bass that enabled me to play the whole part with my fist in the air.  I wrote this song just on open strings so it could be played with just one hand: dumb and fun.” 

  • “Bad Idea,” a track anchored around a simple yet hypnotically looping drum beat and woozily oscillating feedback-driven guitar lines. John Fedowitz’s plaintive yet punchy delivery weaves in and out of the stormy and soundscape, which helps to evoke the vacillating, almost nauseating unease of self-doubt. “Bad Idea” showcases the raw creativity of the band’s bassist John Fedowitz. “He came to the studio with a simple looping drum beat, thinking he didn’t have any good ideas — thus, this song was his ‘bad idea,’” the band’s frontman Oliver Ackermann says. “We each penned some lines on paper, and he sang the ones that resonated. After a few instrumental passes, the recording was complete. The result is an innovative track born from spontaneous collaboration and a touch of self-doubt, turned into something uniquely captivating.” 

  • “Fear Of Transformation,” a snarling and scuzzy New Wave/goth punk synth-driven ripper featuring layers of oscillating synths, a relentless motorik groove, explosive bursts of feedback paired with the band’s long-held penchant for rousingly anthemic, mosh pit friendly hooks and Ackermann’s punchy delivery. Thematically, the track focuses and delves into the struggle of overcoming internal barriers. As the band’s frontman Oliver Ackermann explains, “Sometimes fear builds up and pins you in a cage. A conversation occurs in my head where I have to convince myself to just fucking do something to break out of it.” The song embodies that internal dialogue, capturing the battle between the compulsion to avoid fear and the push to confront it. And as a result, the song is a raw, uneasy and intense conversation with the devil within.

Synthesizer’s fifth single “Don’t Be Sorry,” is a brooding and tense tale of complicated and conflicted emotions, the hate, longing, heartache, betrayal and frustration that frequently comes from your nearest and dearest, and from those you’re estranged from through the use of angular and woozy surf rock guitars, bursts of abrasive synth noise paired with a chugging, motorik groove.

“This song is about how nothing in life is black and white. You sometimes feel hurt and hatred from certain people and yet somehow still miss them,” APTBS’ Oliver Ackermann explains. “Also, as time goes on there are always connections lost with family and friends.  You really want them back in your life but can’t always make it work. Anxiety builds with regret.  You continually miss chances to reach out and see them and then there just isn’t any time left. 

“I feel guilt and worry, wondering what they must think;  if it’s just me who feels this lost connection or if the feeling is mutual. Whatever it is, I would like for these people to know that I miss them and would greet them with open arms if it’s ever possible to reconvene.

“The ‘Synthesizer’ was used to create the abrasive crash sounds that drive home the forcefulness of the chorus ‘Return Home, Don’t Be Sorry’, contrasting with the intimate and concerned vocal delivery.

Directed by Sweden’s Johannes Nyholm, director of the modern cult horror masterpiece Koko-di Koka-da, the horror-themed video depicts a love triangle and power struggle between life, death and art, that stars the Master, the Minion and the Wife that features a fix of animation and live action, shot in a gorgeous black and white.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Babel Map Shares Stormy “Pazuzu”

Initially started as s solo, trip-hop/electronic music project of then-Philadelphia-based singer/songwriter and musician Jessica Drummer, Babel Map became a full-fledged band when Drummer relocated to Harrisburg, PA in 2015. Upon her arrival to the commonwealth’s capital, Drummer started playing live shows, networking and playing with other musicians.

After a series of lineup changes, the band’s lineup settled with the addition of Steph Warner (guitar) and Michael Stipe (bass). The lineup change saw the band’s creative process becoming much more collaborative, and that was quickly followed by a decided change in sonic direction towards a sound that incorporated elements of shoegaze, post-metal and trance.

The trio recorded their full-length debut, 2020’s Raw Tomato, My Heart with Ian Scheila at Philadelphia-based Headroom Studios while cutting their teeth as a live unit, until COVID-19 pandemic restrictions and shutdowns. During the shutdowns, the band wrote their sophomore album, 2022’s CANCEL THIS!, which was recorded right after restrictions were lifted.

Slated for a Friday release through Lost Future Records, the band’s soon-to-be released third album Teeth was originally written last year with electronic drums as a result of another lineup change. The band’s newest member Brian Doherty (drums, percussion) later joined the Harrisburg-based outfit and began writing and producing drums and percussion parts for the album’s material. Babel Map explains the symbolism behind the title, as it is both about “showing your teeth,” but also “leaving a permanent piece of yourself behind for the world to reflect on.”

Recorded with God City Studio‘s Kurt Ballou, Teeth captures the band at a new creative chapter: They explain that the lineup change allowed for a progressive increase in experimentation in terms of song structure and arrangements. Their previously released efforts were written, refined and recorded mostly from playing in a live setting. But for Teeth, the newly constituted quartet came together with no preconceived notions, pressed record and slowly built songs. Once the album’s material was complete, the band began practicing as a quartet to prepare for recording and eventually live shows.

Teeth single “Pazuzu,” is an expansive, deeply brooding and forceful ripper that pairs swirling shoegazer textures and atmospheric keys with enormous stoner rock-like riffage, thunderous drumming serving as a stormy bed for rousingly anthemic hooks and Drummer’s expressive, powerhouse delivery.

The accompanying video fittingly focuses on spooky season tropes, beginning with the video’s protagonist in a creepy house with demons and witches while also nodding at 120 Minutes-era MTV alt-rock-like visuals.