Shoegaze – Page 2 – 7th Level Music

Review: Drop Nineteens – 1991 (2025 reissue)

Back in 1991, Drop Nineteens were recording songs in their dorm rooms and sending them out on cassette to various labels in the U.S. and the U.K. These demos sat unreleased for over three decades and are now finally seeing the light of day with 1991, putting another feather in the band’s cap after touring for the first time in that long in 2023 and releasing their last new album, Hard Light, last year.

1991 (sometimes known as Mayfield in some bootleg releases) is a great slice of time and shoegaze sound. “Daymom” instantly drops you into another world that’s brighter and lusher than the one you’re experiencing right now. The gorgeous guitars, tight beats, and misty vocals are intoxicating. “Song for J.J.” has great rolling beats and more vocals you can’t quite make out but know make you feel good. The thudding bass of “Back in Our Old Bed” reminds me of early Cure tracks, and is largely an instrumental track – which I love. The drop-out in the middle with swirling vocal sounds and guitar effects is a stunner.

Female vocals chant and call in “Soapland,” making you think of sirens luring sailors to either jagged rocks or island paradises. You’re not sure which. The unofficial title track, “Mayfield,” growls like an angry cat with guitars that would make Oliver Ackermann of A Place to Bury Strangers sit up and smile. “Shannon Waves” hits you in waves, and is a pure instrumental that washes over you like a slow-rolling hot tub.

“Kissing the Sea” glistens like sunbeams atop the water at first, and then the drums roll in and almost change the track to an adventurous sail across a secluded bay. It’s not yacht rock by any means, but it’s just as smooth. “Snowbird” sounds like something being sun from atop a snowy mountain, so the title is appropriate. There are no drums on the first half of track, just swirling guitars and synths, but then the song grows into a thumping rocker with buzzsaw guitars everywhere.

Ending with “Another Summer,” 1991 goes out on the fastest notes of the album and is a glimmering rock track that’s perfect for your summer playlists and leaves you optimistic.

This was a stunning debut that had multiple labels scrambling to sign Drop Nineteens. Caroline Records eventually won the skirmish, and Drop Nineteens became legends.

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[Thanks to Tom at Terrorbird Media.]

Rewind Review: Slowdive – Souvlaki (2011 reissue)

Slowdive‘s second album, Souvlaki (originally released in 1993), didn’t make much of a splash at first, but everyone pretty much now agrees that it was, and still is, a shoegaze classic.

“Alison” starts off the album in one of the best ways you can start a shoegaze record – with a song about a pretty girl and getting high. You’d think a song called “Machine Gun” would roll out the heavy walls of guitar feedback, but instead they up the hypnotic synths and let Rachel Goswell‘s morning mist vocals about succumbing to a flood come to the front.

It’s no secret that Goswell and Neil Halstead broke up not long before the band started the writing sessions for this album, and Halstead’s heartbreak is all over the album in his vocals, lyrics, and guitar work. He wrote “40 Days” while on a two-week break in Wales to come to terms with it. The song is a bit loose and jangly with Simon Scott‘s drums doing a little shuffle here and there.

“Sing” and “Here She Comes” were cowritten and produced by none other than Brian Eno. The band, and especially Halstead, wanted Eno to produce the whole record, but he declined. He contributes synths to “Sing,” a song about loneliness with Goswell’s vocals making you wonder if she was reconsidering the breakup. “Here She Comes” is about the hope of finding warmth in the arms of a lover, but knowing it could be a long winter before that happens.

“Souvlaki Space Station” is more psychedelia than shoegaze, and goes to show Slowdive can pull off either genre at will. Despite being one of their biggest hits among fans, bassist Nick Chaplin and guitarist Christian Savill, didn’t think “When the Sun Hits” should be on the album. It hits all the “wall of sound” notes you want in a shoegaze track, and they’ve changed their mind on it since.

“Altogether” has Halstead watching Goswell from a distance, knowing things probably aren’t going much further between them, and the sad guitar work on it only emphasizes that belief. “Melon Yellow” continues this distancing (“So long. So long. It’s just a way to love you.”), with Halstead’s voice sounding far away and Scott’s drums almost mournful. The closing track, “Dagger,” is about, as Halstead put it, “a fucked-up relationship.” It, like many songs on the album, refer to Halstead watching Goswell as she sleeps, perhaps telling her what he couldn’t bring himself to say while she was awake and admitting “You know I am your dagger. You know I am your wound.”

It’s a heavy record, and not just from the sound. It’s gorgeous and sad, so, yeah, a shoegaze classic.

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Sharon Van Etten and The Attachments’ new single is full of “Trouble.”

Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory release “Trouble,” the final pre-release single from their forthcoming self-titled debut album Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory, out February 7th via Jagjaguwar. On the heels of the “ripping” and “mesmerizing” (FLOOD) “Southern Life (What It Must Be Like),” “Trouble” is a cascading, almost euphoric track characteristic of the mystical mix of electronics and analog textures found throughout the album. “Trouble” features Van Etten’s unmistakable vocals alongside melancholic synths by Teeny Lieberson and driving and melodic bass lines by Devra Hoff.

Van Etten explains, “’Trouble’ is about the idea of having to coexist with people you love who have opposing views, and not being able to share deep parts of yourself and your narrative based on someone else’s beliefs. It’s about when there’s that big part of you that someone who loves you can’t know because it’s not something they want to hear or are willing to learn about or understand, and those painful realizations when you choose to love and respect someone else’s needs over your own to salvage a relationship.”

The video for “Trouble” was shot and directed by Susu Laroche during the album’s recording sessions at Eurythmics’ former London studio, The Church.

Watch the Video for “Trouble”

From the off, Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory is sonically different from Van Etten’s previous work. Writing and recording in total collaboration with her band – Jorge Balbi, Hoff, and Lieberson – for the first time, Van Etten finds the freedom that comes by letting go. It’s somewhat terrifying, but also liberating. The result of that liberation is an exhilarating new dimension of sound and songwriting. The themes are timeless, classic Sharon – life and living, love and being loved – but the sounds are new, wholly realized and sharp as glass.

Reflecting on this new artistic frame of mind, Van Etten muses, “Sometimes it’s exciting, sometimes it’s scary, sometimes you feel stuck. It’s like every day feels a little different – just being at peace with whatever you’re feeling and whoever you are and how you relate to people in that moment. If I can just keep a sense of openness while knowing that my feelings change every day, that is all I can do right now. That and try to be the best person I can be while letting other people be who they are and not taking it personally and just being.”

Next month, Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory will play three special shows leading into release week, including her first ever hometown headline show at The Stone Pony in Asbury Park, New Jersey on February 4th. Following a UK and European tour, the band will pick back up for a month of shows across North America in April and May. A full list of dates can be found below, and tickets are available here.

Pre-order Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory

Watch the Video for “Southern Life (What It Must Be Like)”

Watch the Video for “Afterlife”

Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory Tour Dates
Sat. Feb. 1 – Westerly, RI @ The United #
Mon. Feb. 3 – Woodstock, NY @ Bearsville Theater # – SOLD OUT
Tue. Feb. 4 – Asbury Park, NJ @ The Stone Pony – First Home State Headline Show #
Fri. Feb. 28 – Oslo, NO @ Rockefeller *
Sat. Mar. 1 – Stockholm, SE @ Fållan *
Sun. Mar. 2 – Copenhagen, DK @ Vega *
Tue. Mar. 4 – Berlin, DE @ Astra Kulturhaus *
Thu. Mar. 6 – Paris, FR @ Le Trianon *
Fri. Mar. 7 – Antwerp, BE @ De Roma *
Sat. Mar. 8 – Amsterdam, NL @ Paradiso *
Mon. Mar. 10 – London, UK @ Royal Albert Hall *
Tue. Mar. 11 – Manchester, UK @ Albert Hall *
Wed. Mar. 12 – Glasgow, UK @ Barrowland Ballroom *
Thu. Apr. 24 – Atlanta, GA @ The Eastern ^
Fri. Apr. 25 – Nashville, TN @ Brooklyn Bowl ^
Sat. Apr. 26 – Asheville, NC @ The Orange Peel ^
Mon. Apr. 28 – Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club ^
Wed. Apr. 30 – Philadelphia, PA @ Union Transfer ^
Thu. May 1 – Boston, MA @ Roadrunner ^
Fri. May 2 – Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Steel ^
Mon. May 5 – Detroit, MI @ Saint Andrew’s Hall ^
Tue. May 6 – Toronto, ON @ History ^
Thu. May 8 – Madison, WI @ The Sylvee ^
Fri. May 9 – Chicago, IL @ The Salt Shed ^
Sat. May 10 – St. Paul, MN @ Palace Theatre ^
Mon. May 12 – Denver, CO @ Ogden Theatre ^
Tue. May 13 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Metro Music Hall ^
Thu. May 15 – Seattle, WA @ The Crocodile ^
Fri. May 16 – Seattle, WA @ The Crocodile ^ – SOLD OUT
Sat. May 17 – Vancouver, BC @ Vogue Theatre ^
Sun. May 18 – Portland, OR @ Revolution Hall ^
Wed. May 21 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Wiltern ^

# with She Keeps Bees
* with special guest Nabihah Iqbal
^ with Love Spells

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[Thanks to Yuri at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Rewind Review: Slowdive – Just for a Day (2011 reissue)

Slowdive were one of the best shoegaze bands to come out of the 1990s, but also one of the best-kept secrets in the genre for a while. I don’t know if I, or anyone, can explain this, because they’re widely praised among the genre’s enthusiasts and have been playing sold-out shows across the world since their comeback self-titled album released in 2017.

Just for a Day was their 1991 full-length debut, and it’s full of classic touches that make you realize how much they influenced many other bands. The opening somber notes of “Spanish Air” are as good as anything The Cure was making back then, and just as hypnotic. “Celia’s Dream” seems to be a love letter from Neil Halstead to the girl in the title as he sings about shadows drifting away from her, but also her drifting away from him.

“Catch the Breeze” was the lone single from the album, which makes sense when you consider the big, fuzzy wall of sound that hits you in the chorus. “Ballad of Sister Sue” sounds like it could’ve been recorded in an abandoned church with its echoing guitars, mysterious vocals, and distant drums. “Erik’s Song” ends side one of the album with ethereal, instrumental bliss.

Side two begins with “Waves” – a song about leaving a relationship and the freedom that can sometimes bring (“You’re knocking on the door I closed today, and everything looks brighter.”). Speaking of things being brighter, that’s the theme of, you guessed it, “Brighter” – a song about finding hope when things look dark and trusting that tomorrow can bring something better.

“The Sadman” has Rachel Goswell‘s astral plane voice telling us of a being who calls to us when our hearts are broken. Is it someone she knows? A mythical figure? A guy she met outside a gig who looked broken down but still tried to make her laugh? I don’t know, but this needs to be in a movie somewhere. The record ends with “Primal,” which might be the best pairing of Nick Chaplin (bass) and Simon Scott (drums) on the album. They snap and thump in perfect rhythm with each other and never overpower Halstead, Goswell, and Christian Savill. That’s not easy to do when those three are playing shoegaze riffs that grow and grow like a sunrise through rainclouds.

It’s a nice debut record that hinted at bigger things to come and is now considered a bit of a classic.

Keep your mind open.

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zzzahara is “In Your Head” with their new single.

Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter zzzahara shares the new single/video, “In Your Head,” and announces their first North American tour dates in support of the new album, Spiral Your Way Out, out this Friday, January 10th, on Lex Records. Following recent single “It Didn’t Mean Nothing,” “In Your Head” features slowburn melodies and fuzzy shoegaze guitars with reeling riffs and heartsick lyrics evoking early Title Fight.

“In Your Head” was co-produced and written alongside former Ducktails guitarist Alex Craig (Jelani Aryeh, re6ce). “Alex messaged me on Instagram one day and I ended up meeting up with him,” zzzahara says “I think we talked about a million things before we started working on music. Every time I work with him we just shoot the shit for an hour or so! We were geeking out on old school emo and all our hot takes on current artists. We also were nerding out on our favorite riffs and that’s how ‘In Your Head,’ was made. Alex is definitely one of my favorite guitar players. We worked for like 9-10 hours without eating. I’ll never forget how hungry I was.”

The accompanying video by Bethany Michalski pays homage to mid 2000s emo and punk videos a la Paramore and Fall Out Boy, reflecting zzzahara’s unabashed embrace of their formative emo and punk influences for the first time, revisiting artists like Bright Eyes and Broken Social Scene while going through a newly minted Elliott Smith era.

Watch/Stream “In Your Head”

Made in a three-month burst that let all their pent-up frustrations loose, Spiral Your Way Out is in part a work of self-reclamation. With a broad church of influences, zzzahara’s vocal style and knack for earworm melodies act as a throughline without tying the album to a specific genre. There is a certain ease to zzzahara’s music that’s rooted in the ebb and flow of their life. They pick up the guitar and write every day, clinging to the most memorable riffs and melodies like lights in the dark. After a year of upheaval, zzzahara finally feels “calm.” The musical equivalent to going several rounds on a punching bag, Spiral Your Way Out finds solace between extremes. It licks its wounds in a place where pain and love, healing and abandon, sit side-by-side. If it has a message, it’s one of standing tall in your own shoes – scuffs and all.

Watch/Stream:
It Didn’t Mean Nothing”
“If I Had To Go I Would Leave the Door Closed Half Way”
“Ghosts”

Pre-order Spiral Your Way Out

zzzahara Tour Dates:
Wed. Jan. 15 – New York, New York @ Rough Trade (in-store)
Fri. Feb. 14 – Los Angeles, CA @ Roxy Theatre
Wed. Feb. 26 – San Francisco, CA @ Bottom Of The Hill (Noise Pop)
Thu. Feb. 27 – Sacramento, CA @ Cafe Colonial
Wed. Mar. 19 – Portland, OR @ Polaris Hall
Thu. Mar. 20 – Vancouver, BC @ Wise Hall
Fri. Feb. 21 – Seattle, WA @ Madame Lou’s
Sat. Mar. 22 – Bellingham, WA @ Wild Buffalo
Thu. Mar. 27 – San Diego, CA @ Casbah
Fri. Mar. 28 – Santa Ana, CA @ Constellation Room
Sat. Mar. 29 – Las Vegas, NV @ Swan Dive
Sun. Mar. 30 – Salt Lake City, UT @ International Bar
Tue. Apr. 1 – Denver, CO @ Skylark Lounge
Thu. Apr. 3 – Phoenix, AZ @ Valley Bar
Fri. May 2 – Minneapolis, MN @ 7th St. Entry
Sat. May 3 – Chicago, IL @ Schubas Tavern
Sun. May 4 – Ann Arbor, MI @ Bling Pig
Mon. May 5 – Toronto, ON @ The Drake Underground
Tue . May 6 – Montreal, QC @ L’Escogriffe
Wed. May 7 – Cambridge, MA @ Middle East Upstairs
Fri. May 9 – Brooklyn, NY @ Sultan Room
Sat. May 10 – Philadelphia, PA @ Milkboy
Sun. May 11 – Washington, DC @ DC9
Tue. May 13 – Raleigh, NC @ Kings
Wed. May 14 – Atlanta, GA @ The Masquerade
Fri. May 16 – Miami, FL @ Gramps
Sat. May 17 – Orlando, FL @ Will’s Pub
Tue. May 20 – Houston, TX @ White Oak Music Hall (Upstairs)
Wed. May 21 – Denton, TX @ Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios
Thu. May 22 – Austin, TX @ The Mohawk

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Patrick at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Cloakroom tells the tale of “Bad Larry” with their new single.

For Cloakroom the world of modernity is in polycrisis and America has lost its soul. Narrative fetishism is all too usual of a literary mechanism for Cloakroom. If you listen closely you can hear the concern; not just for the teetering social structure but for what it means to be human and the high cost of the human experience.

The Indiana three return next month with their next studio album, Last Leg of the Human Table – the follow up to 2022’s post-apocalyptic space western Dissolution Wave, and label debut for Closed Casket Activities. Each song showcases Cloakroom’s genre-bending capabilities and seemingly vast array of influences; whether it be the sampling of the post-disco Detroit group Was (Not Was) or the lifted NASA recording of the humming of Saturn’s rings. Recorded in December of 2023 at Electrical Audio in Chicago and Rec Room Recording in Des Plaines, Illinois, engineer Zac Montez (Whirr, Turnover) aided in smoothing out the rough and turning up the quiet.

Pop, shoegaze, doom, post-punk, folk only scratch the surface on Cloakroom’s shortest yet most essential release to date. Its title Last Leg of the Human Table may sound sardonic in its nature, but this group has always found some wonder in the scurrying chaos of modern life. In 37 minutes, the album imbues a sense of responsibility to the listener as if one leg were to falter, the whole table will fall.

Today Cloakroom share lead single and video “Bad Larry”. Lyricist and guitarist Doyle Martin explains, “It was written about a fabled character out of folklore like ‘Diamond Joe’ composed by Baldwin ‘Butch’ Hawes.. if that’s who even wrote that song first. Bad Larry roams free and wants for nothing; living a life of experience and lives by his own rules and dying on his own terms; a life to vilify or envy.”

Last Leg of the Human Table sees its release February 28 via Closed Casket, pre-order / pre-save it here.

Listen / Share / Playlist “Bad Larry”

Watch Official Music Video Here

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[Thanks to Bailey at Another Side.]

Top 25 albums of 2024: #’s 5 – 1

We’ve reached the top of the peak. Who’s the grand champion? Read on to learn more.

#5: Fake Youth Cult – White Light / Black Noise

This stunning industrial / darkwave album is loud and heavy enough to cause the damage seen on this cover. This album came out of nowhere for me and about knocked me out of my chair.

#4: Maquina – Prata

Speaking of heavy damage, the cover to Maquina’s Prata album appears to feature a piece of steel that’s been shot, pried, scratched, and gouged. It’s a fitting image for a record full of wild noise punk, assaulting post-punk guitars, and grindhouse vocals.

#3: LAIR – Ngélar

This Indonesian funk / psych band was one of my top discoveries of 2024. They blend traditional Indonesian music with psych-rock, South Pacific juke, and other stuff you can’t quite define.

#2: GUM / Kenny Ambrose-Smith – Ill Times

Possibly the best collaboration of the year, this album combines the powers of two excellent Australians to create synth-psych that covers a lot of heavy topics with uplifting beats (i.e., the death of a parent – Kenny-Smith’s father, fear of the future and your place in it). I hope this isn’t just a one-time thing for them.

#1: A Place to Bury Strangers – Synthesizer

I mean, come on. One of my favorite bands creates an album that has a record sleeve that’s also a circuit board that you can turn into a real synthesizer that they also used to make the album. Only APTBS could pull off something like this and make an excellent record to go with it. It’s like a Moebius strip of post-punk psychedelic power that wallops you from the first note.

Onto 2025! Which albums are you anticipating the most?

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Top 25 albums of 2024: #’s 10 – 6

We’ve reached David Letterman’s favorite spot – the top ten. Let’s see who made the cut this year.

#`10: Dummy – Free Energy

This blast of shoegaze rock is bright in all the right spots and massive in all the others. I hadn’t heard them until 2024 and they ended up being my favorite shoegaze discovery of the year.

#9: New Age Healers – The Spin Out

This is cool psychedelia from the northwest. The album’s cover is indicative of what you experience while listening to it: A swirling mind trip down into strange places, or a mystical wind lifting you up from the ground and into the night sky. It’s your choice.

#8: Aaron Frazer – Into the Blue

Made after he transferred from the east coast to the west coast, Frazer created a second album of great, soulful R&B that’s both honoring and elevating the genre.

#7: Operator Music Band – Four Singles EP

It’s amazing this album even exists when you consider one of the band members nearly died after falling through a skylight before they were ever in the studio. The fact that they made a solid electro post-punk EP afterward is a testament to their commitment to each other.

#6: Meatbodies – Flora Ocean Tiger Bloom

Meatbodies easily are one of the best bands I discovered in 2024. This album is a great mix of psychedelic and garage-punk that immediately left me wanting more from them. I was also lucky enough to see them live twice, and they crushed it each time.

Who’s in the top five? Come back tomorrow to see!

Keep your mind open.

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Top 25 live shows of 2024: #’s 15 – 11

The top 15 live shows I saw in 2024 range from doom metal to post-punk. Read on!

#15: The Well – Stubb’s BBQ – Levitation Austin, November 03, 2024

The Well never disappoint. They opened this night of metal at Levitation Austin’s main stage and set a high bar right away. The mix of older material with upcoming stuff from (hopefully) a new record landing this year was top notch.

#14: The The – Salt Shed, Chicago, IL, October 25, 2024

Here’s a band I wasn’t sure I’d ever get to see live. Matt Johnson returned with a new The The album and then a world tour. It was his first time in the U.S. in over two decades. They played two sets: The first being The The’s new album, Ensoulment, in its entirety and the second being a “time traveler’s set” of classic material. Johnson still sounds great.

#13: A Place to Bury Strangers – Stubb’s BBQ – Levitation Austin, October 31, 2024

Here’s another band who never disappoint. It was my girlfriend, Holly’s, first time seeing APTBS. I told frontman Oliver Ackermann (dressed, like his bandmates, as a vampire for Halloween) before the show that I envied her innocence. Her review? “I need a neck adjustment after that.” I don’t think I can sum it up better.

#12: Jon Spencer – Stockroom East, South Bend, IN, July 11, 2024

Holy $#!+. Jon Spencer and the rhythm section of The Bobby Lees played a forty-minute drive from my house. This small venue almost couldn’t handle their energy. The small crowd at this show got a great gift from them.

#11: Gang of Four – Far Out Lounge – Levitation Austin, November 01, 2024

Here’s another band I wasn’t sure I’d get to see live. This great set by Gang of Four was one of the top highlights of 2024’s Levitation Austin Music Festival for me. Everyone in this crowd was hyped to see them, and Jon King smashing a microwave with an aluminum ball bat was gold.

My top ten shows of 2024 include some old favorites and one final (?) tour. Come back tomorrow for more!

Keep your mind open.

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Top 25 albums of 2024: #s 20 – 16

Here we are at my top 20 albums of 2024. That was fast! Let’s get to it!

#20: Curses – Next Wave Acid Punx Deux – Secret Cuts

This collection by Curses is a great one of rare goth, darkwave, and synthwave cuts that makes you wonder where these bands have been all your life.

#19: Punchlove – Channels

The wall of sound on this shoegaze record from Punchlove is at times deafening and other times soothing. They’re one of my top picks to be one of the Next Big Things.

#18: Paperkraft – Not C but K

Here’s some groovy house music for you from Japan. This EP was a great debut.

#17: Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol – Big Duff Riffs

“What if we made an album that was all big, dumb riffs?” Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol asked. Well, they did it, and it’s a lot of big, dumb, riffing fun.

#16: Dion Lunadon – Memory Burn

It’s another scorcher from Dion Lunadon as he packs more energy into this EP than many double albums you’ve heard.

Who’s in the top 15? Come back tomorrow to learn!

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