BEST OF
DARK
SHOEGAZE & DREAMPOP
2025

The first full-length album from San Francisco shoegaze artist Wisp (real name Natalie R Lu).

Released via Interscope Records—the label behind top-tier artists like Billie Eilish, Kendrick Lamar, and Lady Gaga—this debut LP marks a major step in Wisp’s meteoric rise. Many will be familiar with her Cinderella story: at 18, Natalie’s single “Your Face” went viral on TikTok, leading to a contract with Interscope and the launch of her professional career. She followed with the 2024 EP “Pandora”, performed at Coachella in 2025, and opened for major acts including System of a Down and Deftones, quickly evolving into a fully realized live band. With this momentum, Wisp has become one of the most talked-about names in contemporary shoegaze.

Produced over roughly a year, this album expands Wisp’s sonic palette and pushes the boundaries of shoegaze. Mixing by Lars Stalfors (St. Vincent, Soccer Mommy) and Stephen Kaye (Laufey, Ziggy Marley), with mastering by Ruairi O’Flaherty (Phoebe Bridgers, boygenius), elevates the sound to a new level: distorted guitars crash without harshness, and the delicate, whispery vocals are rendered in exquisite detail. Compared to “Pandora”, the improvement is immediately apparent.

Highlights include:

#1 “Sword” opens with folk-inspired guitar and misty, fragile vocals before powerful drums erupt, unleashing a wall of sound that jolts the dreamlike listener into the story’s beginning.

#5 “Guide Light” evokes My Bloody Valentine with psychedelic, crashing shoegaze. Its gradual descent into slower, heavier passages will delight fans of dense, immersive walls of sound.

#7 “If Not Winter” channels slowcore to convey the sadness of parting, with a poignant piano outro that leaves a lingering emotional impact.

#8 “Mesmerized” is one of Wisp’s rare uptempo tracks, its soaring chorus melody bursting with energy.

#9 “Serpentine” balances tender lyricism with catchy hooks, carrying faint echoes of ’90s–’00s J-pop, from artists like the brilliant green or Aika Ohno.

#11 “Black Swan,” produced again with Kraus, ranks among Wisp’s heaviest shoegaze offerings and serves as one of the album’s highlights. The piercingly beautiful vocals slice through the noise, creating a striking counterpart to the earlier Kraus-produced track “Pandora”.

#12 “All I Need” closes the album on a pastoral, acoustic note, conjuring imagery of thawed snow and verdant meadows.

Despite contributions from multiple producers and composers, the album’s vision remains unified—a testament to professional craftsmanship. The music videos reinforce this narrative world, featuring Wisp as a heroine awaiting rescue in a castle, or transforming into an armored knight, maintaining a fantastical continuity that echoes her angelic depiction on “Pandora”.

With 12 tracks that refine Wisp’s shoegaze signature while embracing new creative directions, the album far surpasses its predecessor in emotional impact. Unlike the early critiques that dismissed her as a TikTok-fueled phenomenon, Natalie’s full compositional involvement is evident across the record, making such dismissals obsolete.

This release stands as a defining work for modern shoegaze (Nu-Gaze), and may well become a milestone in the genre’s 2020s renaissance. Its influence on the increasingly crowded Nu-Gaze scene—whether to intensify the wave or mark its consolidation—remains to be seen. Leading up to the release, Wisp already had 3.07 million monthly Spotify listeners, making her next moves highly anticipated.

As a fan, one can only hope for her continued success—and look forward to the eventual Japanese tour. Having emerged from the winter of “Pandora” into the spring of “If Not Winter”, one wonders whether Wisp’s next chapter will herald a “summer” of poppier, more hook-driven shoegaze. Tracks like “Mesmerized” hint that the door is already ajar.

Previous review: Wisp - Pandora

The second album from Italian cosmic doomgaze duo Hermyth.

Formed in 2021 by Nick Magister (guitar, synth, drums) and Therese Tofting (vocals), Hermyth carries a strong lineage from doom metal—Nick previously played in Ghostheart Nebula, while Therese was part of Funeral Void. The band name likely blends Hermes, the Greek messenger god, with the concept of myth. Their sophomore release, “Aether”, takes its title from the classical “fifth element” once believed to fill the heavens. Though scientifically obsolete, the term remains symbolic of otherworldly beauty—a quality reflected throughout the album’s sound.

Sonically, “Aether” marries majestic keyboards and shimmering guitar with Therese’s ethereal vocals, perfectly evoking the album’s celestial theme. Compared to their debut, the guitar tones here glisten more and the vocals are pushed forward, slightly reducing the immersive, shoegaze-like haze of the earlier work. Nevertheless, song lengths remain relatively concise, and the focus on vocal melodies offers a more accessible experience for listeners who might find doomgaze or post-rock’s typical expansiveness challenging—a contrast to longer-form projects like ISON.

#1 “Heavens” features sparkling guitars and synth waves reminiscent of starlight, paired with fleetingly beautiful vocals, conjuring a sense of astral flight and spiritual transcendence. One might liken it to a doomgaze reimagining of Noriko Watanabe’s “Phoenix”.

#2 “Aether” draws on folk and traditional music for an exotic, mystical atmosphere, evoking the ancient experience of finding mythological meaning in the stars and approaching the heavens with reverence.

#5 “Divination” features guest vocals from Gogo Melone (Aeonian Sorrow), whose vibrato-laden performance adds a fiery counterpoint to Therese’s serene voice—if Therese represents a cool blue Rigel, Melone blazes like Aldebaran.

#6 “The High Priestess” is the album’s most atmospheric piece, fully immersing the listener in the world of “Aether”. Its ten-plus-minute runtime allows for slow absorption, evoking a vast starry sky behind closed eyelids.

While shoegaze textures are somewhat restrained, Hermyth’s mythic cosmic vision remains fully intact. Surrender to the aether and enjoy this 44-minute interstellar journey.

The second album from Australian cinematic post-metal band Myriad Drone.

Originally launched in 2016 as a solo project by Shane Mulholland, Myriad Drone evolved into a full four-piece the following year. After two lineup changes following their debut, the current formation features Shane Mulholland (Gt/Vo), Jacob Petrossian (Gt), Simon Delmastro (Ba), and Frankie Demuru (Dr). Their 2019 debut “Arka Morgana” was ranked #5 on Where Post Rock Dwells’ Best Albums of 2019 list, and has since been widely cited as a standout within modern post-rock and adjacent scenes.

Arriving six years later, “A World Without Us” appears to frame itself around the notion of an apocalyptic or post-human world—an impression suggested by both its title and its cover art, which recalls the dystopian tone of the film The Pink Cloud. Sonically, the most notable evolution lies in Mulholland’s vocals. Clean vocals are pushed significantly further forward in the mix, while harsher screams are introduced more prominently, sharpening the contrast between fragile lyricism and visceral aggression. His clean delivery is particularly delicate and luminous, inviting comparisons to Jónsi (Sigur Rós) or Neige (Alcest), though the influence remains suggestive rather than explicit. The material also leans slightly closer to post-rock than before, adopting a more pastoral atmosphere that subtly echoes Alcest’s melodic sensibilities.

#1 “A World Without Us” opens with restraint before erupting into dense walls of sound and emotionally charged vocals. Its post-rock dynamic of quiet tension and explosive release is offset midway by a sudden shift into folk-tinged choral passages, moving toward an Alcest-like unison of vocals and melody. Despite its ten-minute runtime, the track establishes the album’s scope with ease.

#2 “Forlorn Hope” layers crushing guitars beneath ethereal clean vocals and feral screams, evoking something akin to a final, mythic confrontation. As the label has noted, the track balances post-rock and shoegaze elements while pushing toward a darker overall palette, making it one of the album’s most representative statements.

#3 “DYHAMTTAJ” unfolds as a grand, progressive piece, where intricate rhythmic shifts support soaring, almost sacred vocal lines.

#4 “Longing” highlights Mulholland’s clean vocals within an elegant post-rock framework, gradually building toward a cathartic crescendo of overwhelming distortion.

#5 “Disharmonia” veers into blackgaze territory, driven by blast beats and tremolo picking. Brief flashes of clean vocals introduce a glimmer of light before being swallowed by noise again, suggesting a struggle against inevitable collapse.

#6 “Whereabouts Unknown” begins with a TOOL-like odd-meter groove and a ritualistic, folk-inflected introduction. Tension accumulates steadily until it resolves in a majestic, choir-like climax. Developed from an initial drum pattern conceived by Frankie Demuru and expanded collectively by the new lineup, the track points toward new terrain for the band. While “TOOL meets shoegaze” remains a relatively rare convergence, it has begun to surface more frequently—and this may be one of its more compelling realizations to date.

The closing #7 “Valediction” withdraws into a subdued, quietly melancholic melody, allowing the album to fade out with a sense of stillness. That final calm suggests a world after humanity’s disappearance, reinforcing the album’s broader thematic arc. “A World Without Us” can be read as a kind of requiem for a vanishing species, and stands as one of the more accomplished post-rock / shoegaze-adjacent releases of the year. Fans of Sigur Rós, Alcest, or Holy Fawn will likely find much to appreciate here.

Previous review: Myriad Drone - Arka Morgana

The 2017 EP from Japanese shoegaze project Ame no Naka no Uma.

Originally released in 2017, this EP by Ame no Naka no Uma received its first physical edition in 2025 via the Chinese indie label Amemoyo. The newly released streaming version is presented as a two-disc set, split into Disc 1 and Disc 2.

Centered around Akihiro Nio (guitar/vocals), Ame no Naka no Uma operates primarily as a solo project. On this release, Nio handled every stage of production himself—from songwriting and recording to mixing and mastering. Support members Keisuke Yoshimura (guitar/vocals), Rintaro Yamamoto (bass), and Saki Miyamoto (drums) are credited, and Disc 1 in particular captures a noisy, performance-driven shoegaze sound with a strong sense of live immediacy.

#1 “Triste” opens with siren-like guitar noise that howls and swells, gradually dissolving into a mournful vocal line. The result suggests an ideal form of melancholic shoegaze—immersive, emotionally direct, and finely balanced. Nio’s innocent vocal tone, which carries both sweetness and pain, may recall ART-SCHOOL’s Riki Kinoshita, aligning closely with the song’s title and its expression of sorrow.

Following this, #2 “Dancer In The Dark” shifts into a full-bodied wall-of-sound dance track. Its explosive momentum and melodic phrasing evoke comparisons to Supercar’s later-period classic “Yumegiwa Last Boy,” particularly in its cool vocal delivery and the shared emotional vocabulary of longing and desire. Whether intentional homage or unconscious resonance, the similarity adds an additional layer of intrigue.

Disc 2 presents home-recorded versions of the same material. Stripped down and lo-fi, these takes emphasize fragility and intimacy, revealing entirely different emotional contours within familiar songs. The contrast between the two discs underscores the project’s flexibility—demonstrating how texture and production alone can dramatically reshape perception.

A new track was uploaded to SoundCloud approximately a year ago, suggesting that Ame no Naka no Uma remains active. For listeners drawn to melancholic Japanese shoegaze with both rawness and sensitivity, this EP offers a compelling point of entry well worth revisiting.

The third album from Hull-based UK shoegaze band bdrmm.

Released via Rock Action Records—the label founded by Mogwai—this album continues bdrmm’s steady evolution from its origins as Ryan Smith’s home-recording project into a fully realized band. Their 2020 debut “Bedroom” drew attention for its shoegaze filtered through gothic and post-punk shadows, while 2022’s “I Don’t Know” broadened their palette by incorporating ambient and trip-hop elements.

With “Microtonic,” that trajectory accelerates. Influences cited by the band include Björk, Four Tet, and Massive Attack, and the album pushes decisively further into electronic territory. The shift is not merely stylistic but contextual: anxieties, isolation, and a sense of social stagnation in the post-pandemic landscape appear to inform the record’s atmosphere. The towering shoegaze walls that once defined their sound recede into the background, replaced by uneasy synth melodies that cling like fog and gradually heighten tension. Beneath them, mechanistic beats generate a trance-like pull that favors immersion over release.

What bdrmm seems to be proposing here is not the euphoric rush of rave culture, but dance music as a form of escape—a temporary refuge from a reality that feels increasingly claustrophobic. It is a bold recalibration, and one likely to divide listeners who came to the band through their earlier, more guitar-driven work.

For those receptive to darker, electronically inclined sounds—particularly fans of acts such as The KVB or SPC ECO—“Microtonic” offers a compelling and confident step into new territory, one that reframes bdrmm not as a shoegaze band experimenting with electronics, but as an evolving project redefining its core identity.

The third album from U.S.-based post-metal and doomgaze band SOM.

Released via Pelagic Records, a long-established home for post-metal, SOM was formed by current and former members of Caspian, Junius, and Constants. Prior to this release, the band had issued two full-length albums and two EPs. During the recording of this album, founding drummer Duncan Rich departed, prompting a shift in the lineup. The current formation consists of Will Benoit (vocals, bass, guitar, electronics), Justin Forrest (drums, bass), Mike Repasch-Nieves (guitar, piano), and Joel Reynolds (guitar, synths).

SOM’s sound is built on the interplay between grunge-, shoegaze-, and doom metal–derived guitar weight and an ethereal vocal presence. This balance led Metal Injection to describe their music as “doom pop,” an apt phrase that captures its distinctive character—heavy yet strangely inviting, like sweetness clinging to the thorns of a briar. Influences hinted at on their 2023 EP, including an admiration for Depeche Mode and a visual nod to Type O Negative through green-toned artwork, remain clearly present here. Interviews have confirmed the artwork as an intentional homage, and Benoit has also spoken of early conceptual ideas involving a figure with the commanding presence of Peter Steele—an ideal he acknowledges he could never fully embody, but one that nonetheless lingered as a reference point.

As suggested by its title, “Let the Light In” signals a noticeable shift in tone. Where earlier releases leaned more heavily into melancholy, this album appears to move toward an openness to hope. The change is most explicit on #2 “Let the Light In,” written amid the bleak atmosphere of the pandemic, where the repeated invocation to “let the light in” functions as both lyric and thesis statement.

As a result, the album as a whole feels less overtly dark than its predecessors. From a dark shoegaze perspective, this may register as a slight softening. Yet the contrast between restraint and intensity works to the advantage of certain tracks. #5 “Give Blood” stands out for its sharp interplay of stillness and force, while #8 “The Light” channels a decadent, deeply resonant sorrow. In these moments, darkness feels more potent precisely because it is set against a brighter backdrop—an embodiment of the idea that the stronger the light, the deeper the shadow it casts.

Beginning in October, the band is set to tour the UK alongside Blanket in support of Slow Crush. How this turn toward light shapes their next phase remains an intriguing question—and one that invites continued attention as their trajectory unfolds.

The eighth album from Chicago-based singer-songwriter Circuit des Yeux.

Released via Matador Records—home to artists such as Interpol and Snail Mail—Circuit des Yeux, the project of Haley Fohr, continues to defy easy categorization. Known for commanding a four-octave vocal range, Fohr moves fluidly across gothic, post-punk, neoclassical, darkwave, industrial, and folk, constructing a sound that feels deliberately borderless. On this album, the industrial dimension is brought further to the foreground, resulting in a darker and more imposing evolution of her work.

Throughout the record, Fohr navigates between resonant low registers and piercing falsetto with remarkable control. The effect suggests a cinematic form of dark ritual—one that might be imagined as Chelsea Wolfe, Dead Can Dance, and Depeche Mode converging within a dystopian, digital landscape.

For listeners with an affinity for shoegaze-adjacent textures, #4 “Anthem of Me” stands out as a clear highlight. Majestic neoclassical elements merge seamlessly with drone-like distorted guitars and a monumental, slow-moving beat that evokes the sound of colossal footsteps. Its sense of scale and suspended intensity may resonate strongly with fans of spectral drone and doomgaze acts such as ISON or Lovesliescrushing.

More broadly, the album aligns with a growing tendency to fuse drone-oriented sound design with folk, neoclassical, and darkwave frameworks—a direction also evident in recent works by artists like Ethel Cain and Penelope Trappes. Within this context, Circuit des Yeux positions herself not only as a participant in this emerging aesthetic, but as one of its most distinctive and commanding voices.

The debut album from Swedish band Ritualmord.

Ritualmord was formed in 2007 by Kim Carlsson—one of the founding members of Swedish depressive black metal band Lifelover—and 1853, though the project did not begin operating in earnest until 2020. Given the striking visual similarity to Lifelover’s first album, combined with the deliberately provocative title “This Is Not Lifelover,” some listeners may initially find themselves disoriented.

The title, however, appears to be both a tribute and a declaration. While acknowledging Lifelover’s 20th anniversary and its enduring shadow, Ritualmord explicitly distances itself from that legacy—an assertion that feels intentional in a context where any related project would inevitably be measured against the original. Listening to the album makes that distinction clear. Rather than revisiting a single stylistic lane, the material blends ambient, folk, and industrial elements with post-rock and shoegaze textures, forming a palette that feels markedly broader than Lifelover’s core sound.

That said, traces of lineage remain. Some tracks were reportedly written with Lifelover in mind, though never realized at the time, and Carlsson’s unmistakable screams—strategically placed rather than omnipresent—inevitably evoke the band’s DNA. Still, the overall atmosphere diverges in meaningful ways. Where Lifelover drew heavily from the Brave Murder Day-era Katatonia strain of depressive black metal, Ritualmord leans toward a dreamier, more expansive territory, edging into blackgaze and post-black metal.

What emerges is not a continuation, but an alternative—a project that carries faint remnants of Lifelover while articulating a different set of possibilities. One might reasonably describe Ritualmord as a “Lifelover alternative,” not in opposition, but in parallel. As a debut, the album occasionally suggests a band still exploring its range, yet there is a sense that the shoegaze and post-rock components may grow even more pronounced going forward.

Freed from the weight of expectation that inevitably accompanies a legacy act, Carlsson and 1853 appear poised to chart their own course. How this newly defined world evolves is an intriguing prospect. For additional context, listeners may also want to explore Kall, another project involving Kim Carlsson, which offers a distinct but equally individual perspective.

The second EP from Arizona-based shoegaze band Glixen.

Based in Phoenix, Glixen has rapidly emerged as one of the most closely watched new acts in contemporary shoegaze. Produced by Sonny DiPerri—known for his work with My Bloody Valentine and DIIV—the EP arrives amid a period of significant momentum for the band. Since forming in 2020, Glixen has appeared at numerous festivals, including SXSW, and in April 2025 reached a major milestone with a performance at Coachella. The current lineup consists of Aislinn Ritchie (vocals/guitar), Esteban Santana (guitar), Sonia Garcia (bass), and Keire Johnson (drums). The band’s name is taken from a Lovesliescrushing song, a reference that feels especially apt given their sonic lineage.

Glixen’s sound is defined by sandstorm-like sheets of noise fused with dark, sensual melodies—dense and immersive, yet controlled. Despite their relative youth, the band projects a seriousness that resonates even with longtime My Bloody Valentine devotees. On this EP, the sweetness present in earlier material remains, but the overall tone feels darker and more solidified.

The opening track, #1 “shut me down,” is an instrumental that overwhelms through relentless drum strikes and towering walls of guitar noise. It has reportedly become a staple closer in their live sets, and its physical impact suggests why. Listeners drawn to the heavier end of Japanese shoegaze may find an immediate point of connection here.

A particular highlight is #4 “sick silent.” Its lush melody coils around Jesu-level heaviness, producing a crushing yet hypnotic effect. While many recent Nu-Gaze acts have evolved under the influence of Deftones or Whirr, Glixen appears to reintroduce a deliberate return to My Bloody Valentine’s foundational sensibility into that trajectory. The result suggests a productive feedback loop—one that not only pushes the genre forward but also leads newer listeners back to its origins.

As representatives of shoegaze’s next generation, Glixen stands alongside contemporaries such as Wisp as a project worth sustained attention.

Additional notes:

• Aislinn Ritchie (vocals/guitar): A dedicated film enthusiast, with a particular fondness for the work of Gregg Araki, including The Living End, Nowhere, and Splendor—the latter also serving as the inspiration for “Splendor” from the band’s first EP. Her anime interests include NANA, Serial Experiments Lain, Ergo Proxy, Chobits, Parasyte, and Chainsaw Man.
• Esteban Santana (guitar): Originally rooted in metal, with Godflesh cited among his favorites, while also expressing an appreciation for Dead Can Dance.
• Sonia Garcia (bass): Began playing bass in 2019, making Glixen her first band. A fan of the anime Fullmetal Alchemist.
• Keire Johnson (drums): Has mentioned Afro Samurai as a favorite anime and has spoken in interviews about an interest in visiting Japan.

Glixen – Japan Tour Announced (Updated Dec 2, 2025)

The seventh album from Tokyo-based artist robounoishi.

Operating with two distinct identities—as a Vocaloid producer and as a full band project—robounoishi has steadily expanded his stylistic range across an increasingly prolific catalog. While the previous album “Pater Noster” leaned heavily toward blackgaze and post-black metal, this release marks a sharp pivot. Here, elements of emo, grunge, shoegaze, and hardcore are woven together into a sound that sits firmly within alternative rock.

Among the album’s tracks, two stand out as particularly compelling for listeners drawn to darker shades of shoegaze.
#4 “Boku Wa Kanozyo No Yu-Rei Wo Mita” unfolds as a sorrow-laden shoegaze piece imbued with a wintry chill. The grief of losing a loved one is conveyed with quiet intensity, leaving an ache that lingers like frostbite beneath the skin. Fans of Whirr’s “Sway” may find this track especially resonant.

#5 “Ikite Ite Gomennasai” is arguably one of the darkest compositions in robounoishi’s body of work. Built around relentlessly self-punishing lines, the song suddenly erupts into a harrowing scream that collides with a fragile vocal melody, evoking a level of despair more commonly associated with depressive black metal. The scream appears to be a heavily processed Vocaloid voice—likely Hatsune Miku—an approach previously used in tracks such as “Shinen Ni Kokoro Arite,” though never with such visceral effect. The result demonstrates how, with careful manipulation, Vocaloid vocals can convey striking emotional depth. That said, the track’s overwhelming darkness suggests a degree of caution for listeners who are particularly sensitive to heavy emotional content.

Notably, just one month after this album’s release, robounoishi followed up with an eighth full-length, and on June 17 unveiled the first recording under his band configuration. This relentless pace speaks to a creative drive that is difficult not to admire. Revisiting the earlier releases for context only reinforces the consistency of quality across his discography.