The genre rediscovery via TikTok during the first stages of the pandemic has been going on long enough that we might consider it a Shoegaze Revival Revival.
Ride continue their second phase with ‘Interplay’, an album full of melodic atmosphere lacking some of the creative yearning heard in their earlier work.
Shoegaze’s trademark sound, rippling sheets of guitar noise, is endlessly pliable, easily molded into sonic textures smooth and abrasive alike.
The year’s best album re-issues include rock legends, foundational R&B/soul artists, classic pop, new wave, alternative rock, global beats and so much more.
Andy Bell’s Flicker is the sound of a musician known primarily in shoegaze/Britpop circles who decided to make a singer-songwriter album, and it’s smashing.
Despite all the criticism and perhaps unworthy purple praise, there remains virtually a whole shoegaze movement that people ignore outside of its pink, hazy zenith.
More pleasant and breezy than Weather Diaries, Ride's This Is Not a Safe Place very much feels like a proper follow-up.
The latest from the British indie icons is an EP of material recorded during the sessions of last year's Weather Diaries, and it feels just as confused and inconsistent as its predecessor.
This has been a remarkable year for shoegaze. If it were only for the re-raising of two central pillars of the initial scene it would still have been enough, but that wasn't even the half of it.
