Shoegaze Reviews
9 Shoegaze records in the Certified Archive. Every one of them earned five rainbow thumbs-up, because we only publish reviews of records we think are great — so treat this page as a listening list rather than a ranking. Newest first.
Whelpwisher's '777' Is a Fuzz-Drenched Masterpiece of the Song-a-Day Grind
Chicago's Ben Grigg (Babe Report, Fckr Jr, Geronimo!) wrote a song a day for three separate two-week stretches, then kept the best thirteen. Post-Trash heard static bliss, syrupy shoegaze density and sing-a-long joy.
Pretty Sick's 'Anarchy' Is a Woozy, Fearless Masterpiece of Texture
Sabrina Fuentes's second Pretty Sick album for Dirty Hit, produced mostly by Oscar Scheller. She put the fuzz pedals down and rebuilt the whole band out of synths, club kicks and distortion. Clash gave it 8/10.
Hannah Cole's 'Switchbacks' Is a Debut With a Fourth-Album Sense of Space
Two years of home-studio work with collaborator Josef Kuhn, mixed by Sonny Diperri, out on Tight Knit. Paste says Cole 'explores every space with the practiced maturity of someone who's been at it far longer than she actually has.'
Glisten Trick's 'WORN THIN' Is Krautrock Groove Dissolving Into Drone
This self-released single takes a deep, narcotic groove and slowly lets the air out of it until you're left in pure atmosphere. Glisten Trick keeps building a genuinely singular corner of alt-psych, and 'WORN THIN' is their most confident excursion into it yet.
Kierrr's 'Frail = "me"' Turns a Japanese Summer Into Fractured Memory
This self-released second single from Tokyo's Kierrr is one of the most quietly unsettling things we've heard all month — distorted guitars, whispered vocals, and household-object percussion adding up to something that sounds both beautiful and about to come apart.
Slow Fiction's 'dollhouse' Is a Shoegaze Debut With Real Teeth
The NYC quartet's debut splits the difference between hazy dream-pop and '90s noise-rock grit, shifting from gauzy shimmer to abrasive fuzz without ever losing its emotional throughline. dollhouse is a wonderful, lived-in first record.
Helen's 'Dead Shark II' Proves Some Reunions Are Worth the Decade-Long Wait
Grouper's Liz Harris reunites her shoegaze trio Helen for the first time since 2015. 'Dead Shark II' sounds like no time was lost at all — hazy, melodic, and quietly enormous.
venturing's 'Nowhere' EP Is Jane Remover's Most Devastatingly Catchy Detour Yet
Jane Remover's rock-band alias venturing trades hyperpop chaos for big hooks and bigger feelings on a three-song EP for deadAir. Retro-futurist heartbreak rock that earns every second.
LULU Suicide Weld Love and Death Into Shimmering Steel on 'Fiber Optic Lovers'
Fully DIY shoegaze from Poznań, Poland — one person tracking guitars, drums, vocals, and mixing the whole thing themselves. Heavy as Whirr, dreamy as Slowdive, and completely invisible to the music press. Eleven tracks about love and death that glow like cable-light.