BEST OF
DARK
SHOEGAZE & DREAMPOP
2024

The momentum behind deer death shows no signs of slowing. The enigmatic, masked shoegaze artist has released a third album this year alone—and when demo collections and compilations are taken into account, this effectively marks their fifth release in the same span. Even by the standards of prolific contemporaries like Novulent, the pace is remarkable, and for listeners, it is very much a welcome surplus.

What continues to define deer death’s appeal is the guitar work: intensely noisy, yet consistently allowing moments of ethereal beauty to seep through the distortion. This contrast becomes even more apparent when compared to Burden, the previous collaborative release with Nextime, where the textural balance leaned differently.

Another distinguishing element is the vocal approach. Uncommon within shoegaze, the rough, unpolished delivery avoids the familiar whispery register and instead introduces a deeper strain of melancholy. It suggests a weight and presence that functions as one of deer death’s most distinctive weapons.

The album is packed with highlights. Track #1, “Nothing By Myself,” draws listeners in through the contrast between sun-dappled arpeggios and a melody steeped in quiet sorrow. “A Letter” follows, with anguished screams used sparingly as an emotional accent, while “Kill the Love” culminates in an onslaught of raw lament that feels almost physically affecting.

Among shoegaze artists emerging from TikTok-driven visibility, deer death now appears to stand alongside names such as Novulent and Wisp in terms of both output and impact. With an additional single already released after this album, it would not be surprising if yet another full-length were to surface before the year is out. For now, deer death remains an artist well worth close attention.

The eleventh album from Russian cosmic post-black metal project Nebula Orionis.

Nebula Orionis is the solo project of Alexander, a professional orchestral percussionist, which he began in 2013. With over a decade of experience, he draws inspiration from 20th-century composers such as Shostakovich and Rachmaninoff, as well as atmospheric black metal, crafting music that layers synths and piano over a black metal foundation to create expansive, beautiful soundscapes.

While the previous album, Sorrow, leaned heavily into post-black metal with blast beats, this release takes a more melodic approach, centering on mid-tempo passages and bringing synths to the forefront. Against a backdrop of heavy guitars, shimmering synths and piano drift like stars across the cosmos, evoking the sensation of gazing upon a vast galaxy from aboard a spaceship. Black metal-derived screams, present in earlier releases, continue here, punctuating the ethereal textures with dramatic flair. The unique resonance of vocals and instruments—sometimes sounding as if emerging from ten meters away—recalls the raw atmosphere of early black metal.

Fans of sci-fi-tinged post-metal and blackgaze acts such as Enshine and Unreqvited will likely find much to appreciate. For those unsure where to start among the extensive catalog: Winter Hymns (2015) is recommended for a colder, more melancholic sound, while Sorrow (2023) suits those who prefer a heavier, more intense experience.

Prepare to embark on a sweeping journey through the Orion Nebula and beyond.

The debut album from Tokyo-based solo artist Watanabe, under the project WaB.

From the moment playback begins, listeners are assaulted by a wall of noise so intense it feels as if finely crushed glass were poured directly into the ears. The album maintains this overwhelming sonic pressure throughout, yet it avoids monotony by interspersing ambient drum & bass passages and simple acoustic tracks that offer brief moments of respite.

Vocals alternate between clean singing and ferocious screams, with #7 “ether” standing out in particular. The intensity and precision of the screaming approaches the level of Gris’ Icare or early Alcest’s Neige, sure to satisfy veteran black metal fans. This extreme, heavily distorted form of shoegaze—exemplified by WaB. and Kuragari—I refer to as “aural destruction” shoegaze, and it seems to be gaining traction as a subtle but growing movement within the newgaze scene.

WaB. is also active live: a band-set performance under the name WarB is scheduled for January 23, 2025, at Cross in Chofu. Interested listeners can follow WarB.’s X for updates and further announcements.

The 2024 release from Sadness, the depressive black / blackgaze project of US-based Damian Anton Ojeda.

As recent trends suggested, this album marks a full-fledged shift toward the light. Gone are the anguished screams of earlier works, replaced by a meticulously crafted soundscape overflowing with beauty, love, and hope. The profound sorrow that once defined Sadness is notably absent, yet the sentiment is welcome: the journey through despair to a happy ending has its own profound value.

Despite the album’s luminous orientation, the cathartic interplay between ear-shattering guitar noise and ethereal melodic harmonies remains intact, ensuring the project’s signature intensity persists. In a year when artists such as Alcest, Parannoul, and MONO have released works suffused with hope, Sadness stands out precisely because its origins were dark, making the resulting light feel all the more dazzling. Much like emerging from a long tunnel, the contrast between shadow and illumination intensifies the brilliance of what follows.

Though Ojeda briefly shocked fans with a Patreon retirement announcement (now deleted), he continues to be active and performed live in October 2024.

Among the three Sadness releases of 2024, each exhibits subtle differences:

• your perfect hands and my repeated words: a balanced blend of dream pop, shoegaze, and post-rock
• i want to make something as beautiful as you: leaning more toward post-rock
• i love you: leaning more toward shoegaze

This review highlights the most immediately engaging of the trio, though all three are deserving of attention and admiration.

Just five months after “Secret Letters,” Novulent has already returned with a new album—and the difference is immediately striking. From the first play, the leap in sound quality is hard to miss. Less than a year on from the lo-fi textures of Vol. 1, this level of evolution feels remarkable. The guitars, in particular, carry far more weight and density, resulting in what appears to be Novulent’s heaviest and most forceful release to date.

Track #4, “Closure,” stands out with its glacial melodies colliding against storm-like walls of noise, generating a sense of catharsis that has often been associated with bands Novulent has cited as influences, such as Whirr. The songwriting itself also feels more deliberate and fully realized this time around; structural weaknesses that some listeners noted on Vol. 1 are largely resolved here, giving the album a stronger sense of cohesion and momentum.

As a result, this release strongly suggests a new creative peak for Novulent. The project’s monthly listener count—reported at approximately 2.93 million as of August 2024—continues to rise, placing it alongside, and potentially beyond, legacy shoegaze acts like Slowdive and Cocteau Twins. While Novulent has at times been framed as a product of TikTok-driven visibility, the markedly improved sound production here points to something more durable: an artist increasingly capable of standing as a defining presence within the current shoegaze landscape.

With a full-band tour planned around Vol. 2, speculation about international dates feels increasingly plausible. Given how quickly recent shoegaze shows have sold out in Japan, it would not be surprising if promoters are already paying close attention.

As a side note, the spoken line “end here…” heard in the intro of track #3, “Skin To Skin,” also appears in Deadlyswcct’s “perpetual senescence.” The shared sample is intriguing, and its origin remains a small mystery—one that may linger longer than expected. Anyone familiar with the source is warmly encouraged to reach out via X.

The third full-length album from California-based shoegaze band Cold Gawd also marks their second release since joining the influential Dais Records roster. Originally launched in 2020 as a solo project by Matt Wainwright, Cold Gawd had previously been defined by a fully self-performed approach. On this album, however, the involvement of a full band in the recording process appears to have introduced a more physical sense of weight and dynamic movement, elevating the overall sound to a new level.

The opening track, “Gorgeous,” erupts with Wainwright’s unmistakable roar, immediately pulling the listener into this reinvigorated incarnation of Cold Gawd. From “Portland” through “Malibu Beach House,” the album’s core strengths come into sharp focus: bulldozer-like walls of heavy guitar set against emotionally charged vocals, creating a tension that has become central to the band’s identity.

In particular, the melancholic tone shaped by the interplay between lead guitar lines and vocal melodies stands out as one of the record’s defining features. Given that Wainwright has cited Whirr’s “Feels Like You” as a key influence, this sense of harmony-driven melancholy feels both intentional and convincingly realized.

Listening with eyes closed, the album can evoke an unsettling yet immersive imagery—as if lying at the bottom of an open grave, funeral music drifting above, suspended between despair and release. The decision to place more dreamlike tracks toward the latter half of the record, gently guiding the listener toward a sense of ascension, further reinforces its carefully considered flow.

This album can reasonably be cited as one of the standout melancholic shoegaze releases of the year. Fans of Whirr, Life on Venus, or Newmoon may find it particularly rewarding.

Second installment of “Aprender A Ser” the third album from Mexican dream pop/shoegaze band Mint Field. This release continues the introspective atmosphere established in the first half, where ethereal dream pop intertwines with subtly shadowed trip-hop textures, creating a hazy, inward-facing soundscape.

Moments like #5 “Una flor sin interior” and #6 “Ve hacia la ventana” introduce bursts of psychedelic noise reminiscent of the band’s debut album. These passages briefly cut through the album’s otherwise restrained mood, adding contrast and preventing the overall flow from settling into uniformity.

The band’s Spanish-language vocals remain a defining element, lending an exotic warmth that enhances the album’s immersive quality. The effect is gently intoxicating—less overwhelming than enveloping—inviting the listener into a dreamlike state that feels both intimate and transportive.

Taken together, this second part functions as a subtle but effective expansion of Aprender A Ser, balancing refinement with flashes of raw, psychedelic intensity. For listeners drawn to the blurred emotional contours of Slowdive, the nocturnal pulse of Portishead, or the soft-focus shoegaze of deary, this release offers an inviting passage into an alternate headspace.

The first EP from Tokyo-based alternative rock band nannou.

Formed around 2010, the band released their first album “suicide underground” in 2015. After several lineup changes, this EP was recorded by seheru (Vo/Key), yu (Gt), takosuke (Ba/Cho), and tayu (Dr), though bassist takosuke departed shortly after the release.

Built around noisy guitars layered with delicate arpeggios and keyboards, the EP is anchored by vocals steeped in deep melancholy, drifting with an almost spectral presence. Drawing on the decadent elegance once associated with 4AD, nannou weave together elements of gothic rock, alternative, shoegaze, and progressive music, filtered through a distinctly Japanese sense of wabi-sabi. The result suggests a unique aesthetic where fragility and intensity coexist.

Key tracks include:

#1 “Fatal Words lie with me” – A striking opener, led by a plaintive, searching vocal that conveys a strong sense of yearning.

#2 “Kyozou” – Hollow vocals and desolate noise heighten feelings of isolation, creating a stark, emotionally charged atmosphere.

#3 “Gunjyou” – Showcases intricate rhythm work and a clear progressive sensibility beneath its brooding surface.

#4 “slow” – Amid a storm of noise, keyboards and vocals melt seamlessly together, closing the EP on an immersive, hypnotic note.

While the release-party performance reportedly leaned heavier and more metal-oriented in terms of sheer volume, the recorded versions reveal a more dreamlike, shoegaze-inflected beauty. Beyond shoegaze listeners, fans of gothic rock and visual kei may also find much to appreciate here.

The second album from Enola, a shoegaze band hailing from Surabaya, Indonesia. The current lineup consists of three members: Adi Fikri (Dr/Vo), Ayis (Gt), and Dwiki (Ba/Vo). Formed in 2019, the band began when Ayis—formerly a member of the hardcore outfit War Fighters—invited the other two to join the project.

Following the beautiful and expansive atmosphere of their debut Does Anyone Else, Enola take a decisive turn toward darker territory on Commit Death, exploring heavy themes such as death, heartbreak, desire, and regret. The opening track, #1 “Light That Never Goes Out by Mariusz Lewandowski,” is an instrumental piece exceeding eleven minutes. Distorted guitars toll endlessly like funeral bells, evoking the image of a final journey into the afterlife.

Next comes #2 “Darak (Vicarious Trauma),” a slow-tempo, oppressive strain of doomgaze in which massive guitar riffs surge forward in waves. Between the repetitions, fragile clean arpeggios and ghostly, hollow vocals surface, offering a fleeting sense of release from suffocation—only for that voice, tinged with a sweet yet poisonous allure, to slowly corrode the listener from within.

On #3 “Infernal,” delicate clean vocals intertwine with brutal screams against a backdrop of crushing distortion. #4 “Repent” introduces a female vocal presence, blooming like an alluring flower in the darkness. Tracks such as #6 “Lambda (λ)” and #7 “Lambbda,” which rein in distortion in favor of a more dreamlike beauty, remain slow and decadent throughout, yet are rich in dynamic contrast and spatial depth, never allowing the tension to dissipate.

The album closes with #8 “I Will Never Recover,” a beautiful piano ballad. Its gentle tone initially suggests a happy resolution—until the lyrics deliver a devastating revelation: “I was not in a dark place, I was the dark place” What arrives at the end is not salvation, but the shocking realization that the self is the very source of despair. An utterly devastating ending—truly a perfect descent into melancholy.

This is a formidable work that skillfully fuses the delicate lyricism of post-rock and slowcore with the crushing heaviness of doomgaze and post-metal. Discovering a band from Southeast Asia so perfectly aligned with my own tastes was a genuine blind spot. Fans of Spotlights, Holy Fawn, or Chelsea Wolfe should take note.

On a personal level, Enola’s evident respect for Type O Negative is particularly compelling—the band has even shared posts commemorating Peter Steele’s death anniversary on Facebook. With closer listening, hints of a gothic sensibility reminiscent of October Rust and Bloody Kisses begin to emerge, especially on “Darak (Vicarious Trauma). That may be subjective, of course—but the resemblance is hard to ignore.

Enola are scheduled to embark on a large-scale Asian tour in 2025, with Japanese dates already confirmed as part of the itinerary. Given the exceptional level of refinement they have achieved as a doomgaze/post-metal act emerging from Southeast Asia, considerable attention is warranted as to how they will translate their music’s weight and tension into a live setting.

[Updated: 9/8/2025] Enola’s Japan tour has officially been confirmed.

Debut album from French modern metal/shoegaze band Vestige, formed by members of the symphonic death metal outfit Naraka and now expanded with guitarist Thomas Petit. The current lineup features Théodore Rondeau (vocals/guitar), Pierre-André Krauzer (bass), and Quentin Regnault (drums), marking a clear stylistic departure from their previous work.

Built on tightly chugging, metalcore-influenced guitar riffs layered with shimmering arpeggios and atmospheric tremolo lines, the album suggests a deliberate move toward post-hardcore and shoegaze, favoring textural contrast over sheer extremity.

Rondeau’s vocal approach has also shifted notably. Previously centered on harsh growls, his performance here alternates between fragile clean melodies and abrasive screams, adding a heightened sense of drama and emotional range. This contrast reinforces the album’s broader tension between weight and atmosphere.

While metal–shoegaze crossovers have most often emerged from black metal or doom metal contexts, Vestige appear to approach the hybrid from a modern metal and metalcore-informed angle. The result feels less rooted in extremity and more invested in dynamics, texture, and emotional pacing.

The album’s defining moment arrives in the transition from track #5 “Automne Part.1,” into “Automne Part.2 feat Neige (Alcest).” Both tracks balance intensity and delicacy in a manner reminiscent of Alcest’s third album, while offering a rare opportunity to hear Rondeau’s and Neige’s vocals in close conversation. The intentional emphasis on acoustic guitar further aligns the mood with Alcest’s aesthetic, reading as a gesture of respect rather than imitation.

Taken as a whole, the album suggests an ambitious debut designed to resonate with listeners across both metal and shoegaze audiences.