REVIEW

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.