If you love the Deftones as much as I do, you’ve undoubtedly passionately defended them to a nu-metal naysayer. “They’re not really nu-metal,” you might argue. “Sure, they had some rap parts on their first record, but they’ve actually spent most of their career leaning into dream-pop and shoegaze influences.” (I can’t be the only […]
Tag: shoegaze
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Philadelphia band They Are Gutting a Body of Water keep shoegaze weird on Lucky Styles
While on tour in 2018, I played a show in a dusty Philadelphia warehouse with locals They Are Gutting a Body of Water, a ragtag four-piece of young shoegaze revivalists. They really connected with me: they looked awkward and out of place, and they played beat-up old gear, but they put so much heart and […]
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Sweet Cobra go post-everything with a brilliant new musical reinvention
Born of the Fireside Bowl hardcore scene, local trio Sweet Cobra have become synonymous with heavy music in Chicago over the past two decades—but they’ve also evolved every step of the way. They started off as a fairly typical early-aughts doomy hardcore act, and though they’ve shifted away from hardcore with proggy, sludgy, and melodic […]
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Chicago-based alt-rockers Smut reach for the comfort in shoegaze with How the Light Felt
Alt-rock five-piece Smut formed in Cincinnati in 2014, and within a couple years, their shoegaze-dappled heavy rock had caught the ear of Bully front woman Alicia Bognanno, who offered them a crucial tour-support spot. In the time since Smut’s previous full-length, 2017’s End of Sam-soon, they’ve relocated to Chicago, dialed back the aggression in their […]
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Marissa Nadler adds a welcome darkness to the scary darkness of the end of days
As the world literally burns, it’s a comfort to see performers we hold dear come back through town to offer musical relief. Singer-songwriter Marissa Nadler debuted in 2004 with the album Ballads of Living and Dying, establishing the template for her delicately ominous, reverb-shrouded fables of loss and mortality. She’s since come out of the […]
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Cult emo experimentalist Weatherday arrives in Chicago
In February, teenage Chicago indie rockers Dwaal Troupe contributed a tender, dusty tune called “Everyone Forgot but You” to Porcelain Songs, a 30-track compilation made by fans of enigmatic Swedish indie-rock project Weatherday. The musicians involved in the comp put it together via Discord, a messaging app and social-media platform that allows young fans to […]
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Deftones merge metal and dream pop to remain one of rock’s most enduring heavy acts
Even though the ongoing reappraisal of nu metal has recognized that era as a significant cultural moment, Sacramento band Deftones still manage to catch a bad rap. Sure, they came up as part of the same movement as Korn and Limp Bizkit, and they toyed with some dated, aggro rap-rock on a couple songs in […]
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Gentle Heat make compact indie rock that feels huge
Chicago band Gentle Heat play no-nonsense indie rock that captures the allure of a towering blaze in the space of a single spark. On their new full-length, Sheer (Flesh & Bone), they pack dream-pop’s gauzy atmosphere into tidy, loud-quiet-loud tracks. The songs hit hard and move briskly, driven by sprocket-wheel rhythms, while retaining shoegaze’s heavenly […]
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Cloakroom tap into their dreamier side on Dissolution Wave
On the untouchable 2017 LP Time Well, Cloakroom dialed in and perfected their take on modern slowcore, blending Hum-flavored space rock and atomically heavy walls of guitars with syrupy, dreary, and heart-wrenchingly sad vocal melodies. The Northwest Indiana trio have since undergone a lineup shift, and some members have also spread their wings in other […]
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Houston shoegaze outfit Narrow Head reissue their glorious debut, Satisfaction
In the years since Nicky Palermo of Philadephia hardcore band Horror Show released a demo tape under the name Nothing in 2011, it’s become a sort of running joke in the scene that hardcore kids grow up and turn shoegaze. It’s a logical progression: hardcore’s raw, heavy sounds are built to express loss, pain, or […]
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Ben Grigg energizes his shoegaze style as Whelpwisher
Chicago indie-rockers Geronimo! played their final show in March 2015, and keyboardist Ben Grigg must’ve turned his attention to making solo recordings as soon as he got off the stage. He self-released his first EP as Whelpwisher in October of that year, and his output hasn’t slowed since: he’s been refining his sweet alt-rock tunes […]
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Chicago’s Starless merge shoegaze and metal on Hope Is Leaving You
Chicago four-piece Starless launched in 2014 with a lineup including members of local bands Beak, the Timeout Drawer, and Our Earth Is a Tomb. This month the four-piece (not to be confused with the Japanese prog band or the Scottish art-pop band of the same name) are releasing their second full-length, Hope Is Leaving You. […]
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Lovesliescrushing make shoegaze for a parallel universe
Scott Cortez and Melissa Arpin Duimstra have built a cult audience in their 30 years as Lovesliescrushing—and new music and vinyl reissues are on the way.
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Chicago-born shoegaze group Fauvely roll back the distortion on Beautiful Places
Fauvely front woman Sophie Brochu has built a creative life working with the warm, distorted tones of shoegaze; for much of the 2010s, she explored the style’s indie-pop possibilities in Chicago five-piece Videotape, and she’s helped push amps to their breaking points as part of the live lineup for Scott Cortez’s wall-of-sound project Astrobrite. Brochu […]
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Nothing channel 90s shoegaze with winning results on The Great Dismal
Domenic Palermo started writing and recording dark shoegaze songs under the name Nothing ten years ago. Since then, Nothing have spearheaded a shoegaze revival by releasing a constant deluge of incredible material, and their recent fourth full-length, The Great Dismal, is no exception. Nothing’s lineup has been retooled since their previous album: Aaron Heard, vocalist […]