Shoegaze band Mondaze will release their second album Linger on 22 November via Bronson Recordings.
The opening track, ‘Lines of You’, showcases the recurring tension between presence and absence, reflecting how this internal struggle is ever-present in daily life. Haunted by lingering ghosts and memories that refuse to fade, Mondaze’s melancholy isn’t merely a stylistic element—it’s a deep exploration of the collective labyrinths faced by a generation longing for connection. It sounds as powerful as it is necessary in our times. There’s a strength that stems from reflection and observation.
The video was directed by Clement Pelo, and it stars Yannis Beck and Benedicte Bonpunt.
Watch it here:
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The band have previously released two singles: album title track ‘Linger’, a song that explores memory and nostalgia. and ‘Son of the Rambling Dawn’, a track that creates an immersive experience with intricate layers, smoothly blending different influences to convey a modern sensibility.
Since forming in 2018, Italy-based Mondaze have defined themselves as “heavy shoegaze”, taking inspiration from bands like genre-giants Swervedriver and Ride, but also contemporary bands pushing through the limits of the genre like Nothing and Ringo Deathstarr. With Linger, they aim to amplify the melancholy tones of their frustration and rage. These sonic characteristics drove them to work with Chris Fullard (Idles and Boris) on mixing, and Maurizio Baggio (The Soft Moon, Boy Harsher) for mastering. The result is an album with roots, yet distinctly modern featuring arrangements that skilfully blend contemporary styles with dreamy and eerie atmospheres.
In the debate of nature versus nurture, it’s noteworthy how many artists find themselves influenced in no small way not only by their formative years, but also the place or places where they grew up. There’s an entire thesis to be made from this, but here I make the observation because on Allens Cross, Empty Cut – a duo consisting of Douglas Fielding-Smith and Robert Bollard – have forged a work ‘Inspired by their childhood growing up in Birmingham they blend together all their experience and inspirations to create a noise that holds a heavy solid groove mixed with harsh noise and fuzzed out reverbed bass, topped with psychedelic synths, and chopped and screwed vocals.’
Birmingham, the city which gave us Black Sabbath and UB40, the second largest in England, with a population of over two and a quarter million, and has long been renowned for its diversity, and is a truly multicultural melting-pot. It’s perhaps unsurprising that cities like this – in contrast to so many predominantly white, often middle-class towns – are the source of musical innovation: throw in an element of social deprivation, the frisson of frustration driven by class and cultural disparity, and inevitably, this backdrop will fuel the fires of those with a creative bent.
Allens Cross is exemplary: as the blurbage summarises, ‘mixing together drums, bass, samples, effects and vocals they have created a sound that incorporates punk, hardcore, electronica, jazz, drum’n’bass, experimental-industrial and shoegaze.’ It’s one of those that on paper probably shouldn’t work, but thanks to the dexterity if its creators, works far beyond imagination.
It grinds in on a sample looped and echoed across a dirty bass and slow-building beat… and then everything slides into a doomy, sludgy sonic murk. ‘Bloodline; makes for a dank and difficult opening, five minutes of feedback and dinginess sprawling and lunging this way and that, culminating in a manic howl driven by frantic percussion and driving bass.
‘Fidget’ whips up a howl of feedback against a juddering stop/start bass, and with shouty vocals low in the mix, it brings a quintessential 90s Amphetamine Reptile vibe with a hint of Fudge Tunnel… until things take a detour into dub territory in the mid-section. When the noise blast returns, it hits even harder.
With none of the album’s eight tracks running for less than five minutes and the majority straying beyond six, it feels like there’s an element of slog, of punishment, inbuilt. ‘The Well Beneath’ certainly mines that dark seem of metal that plunges underground, but with the contrast of jazz drumming and some quite nifty bass work, at least until they hit the ‘overload’ pedal and everything blows out with booming distortion.
If ‘Fluff’, by its title sounds cuddly, like a kitten, or a bit throwaway, like that which you’d sweep up from the corner or the room, the reality is quite the opposite: a six-minute seething industrial sprawl, it’s slow-burning, dark and menacing, and a clear choice of lead tune… Not, but then again, with an echo of Eastern promise and a certain ambience, and the strains of feedback a way in the distance, it perhaps is the most accessible cut on the album.
We’re proud to share a video exclusive of ‘Fluff’ here:
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Elsewhere, ‘Hymn to Then’ pitches cold synths and rolls of thunder to conjure dark images, a stormy backdrop to an eye-opening hybrid of prog rock, industrial, and krautrock: the result isn’t only epic, but conjures images of Dracula and unseen horrors with its icy atmospherics, while the last track, the eight-minute ‘Shatter’ begins with an eerie take on Celtic folk
Allens Cross is a highly imaginative work, an album that draws together a broad range of styles in a cohesive form. Its impact lands by stealth, building as it does across a range of styles, often creeping under the skin, unexpectedly, to register its effect. Sparse synths laser-cut across distorted, arrhythmic percussive blasts, as a low-level crackle and hum of distortion hovers around the level of the ground. Fractured vocals add to the disorientation, and the experience is uncomfortable. You cower, and will for release, not because it’s bad, but because it’s intentionally claustrophobic, torturous, and so well executed.
This is perhaps a fair summary of Allens Cross as a whole. It is not, by any means, an easy listen. Enjoyable would be a stretch. But it is utterly compelling.
Shoegaze band Mondaze will release their second album ‘Linger’ on 22 November via Bronson Recordings.
They have recently shared their new single ‘Son of the Rambling Dawn’, which adopts a visceral and physical perspective. It delves into “the fleeting nature of life and the unavoidable fate that accompanies it, where uncertainty reigns and everything is destined to change.”
The sound is a contemporary and dynamic take on shoegaze, with guitars returning as a central element that creates an immersive experience and intricate layers, smoothly blending different influences to convey a modern sensibility.
Listen here (click image to play).
Since forming in 2018, Italy-based Mondaze have defined themselves as "heavy shoegaze", taking inspiration from bands like genre-giants Swervedriver and Ride, but also contemporary bands pushing through the limits of the genre like Nothing and Ringo Deathstarr. With Linger, they aim to amplify the melancholy tones of their frustration and rage. These sonic characteristics drove them to work with Chris Fullard (Idles and Boris) on mixing, and Maurizio Baggio (The Soft Moon, Boy Harsher) for mastering. The result is an album with roots, yet distinctly modern featuring arrangements that skillfully blend contemporary styles with dreamy and eerie atmospheres.
‘Crippled Crow’ is the final single by Norwegian band Mayflower Madame’s much anticipated upcoming album Insight, out on 1st November via Night Cult Records/ Up In Her Room/Icy Cold Records.
Compared to the album’s previous singles, this newest track expands on their distinctive fusion of edgy post-punk and dreamy shoegaze, incorporating aspects of noise-rock and darkwave. Driven by a driving bass line and dynamic drumming, the song leads you on a captivating journey – from the haunting verse melodies to the intense guitar passages in the choruses, culminating in a powerful ending. It evokes feelings of longing and remorse amidst the wintry streets of Oslo, intertwined with a burning desire for transformation and catharsis.
Check the video here:
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Mayflower Madame return to the UK and Europe for a tour in November. Tickets are available here.
‘Never Sever’ is the third single from Norwegian band Mayflower Madame’s eagerly awaited album Insight, set to release on November 1st.
While their previous singles, ‘A Foretold Ecstasy’ and ‘Paint It All in Blue’ refined their signature blend of post-punk, shoegaze and psychedelia, this new track reveals the band’s more direct and energetic side. Their sound is still spun with alluring dark textures but is now profoundly interwoven with rays of light and a bittersweet melancholy.
Additionally, the track introduces a touch of rock‘n’roll swagger in the verses seamlessly merging with dream-pop elements in the choruses, making ‘Never Sever’ one of their most accessible songs to date. Lyrically, the song captures a nostalgic feeling of being unable to reclaim—or unwilling to let go of—a haunting past.
Watch the video for ‘Never Sever’ here:
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Mayflower Madame have announced they will be returning to the UK and Europe for a tour this Autumn.
FULL DATES (with ticket links):
Sat 5 October – Return To The Batcave Festival – Wroclaw, Poland – Tickets
Magic Wands is a dream pop duo originally formed in Nashville by guitarists / vocalists Chris and Dexy Valentine. Now based in Los Angeles, the group is known for its shimmering and dreamy sound, which incorporates elements of shoegaze, post-punk and goth.
Characterised by heavily-textured guitars, synth drones and ethereal vocals, these elements in combination produce music with an otherworldly atmosphere that has been widely praised for its euphoric quality, especially evident in live performances.
Dedicated to creating music that is both imaginative and emotionally engaging, Magic Wands have issued five studio albums to date, the most recent of which is Switch (2023). Its songs were also remixed by guest artists and released as Switched later in the year.
Sheffield (and Totnes) shoegaze quartet Pale Blue Eyes may not have had the kind of meteoric ascent to the stratospheres enjoyed by The Last Dinner Party, but they’ve certainly come a long way in a short time for such a young band. Following a similar trajectory to Hull’s BDRMM, they started out in 2021, as we were emerging from lockdown, as a geographically distanced duo, expanding to a three- and then four-piece, releasing their debut album in 2022. No-one would likely have foreseen that two years on, they’d be opening for Slowdive. And now, here they are, on their own headline tour, playing to substantial crowds in 300+ capacity venues in places they’ve never been before. Small wonder they spend the set beaming at simply being here.
To revisit a favourite topic of late, this is why we need grassroots venues. I first saw BDRMM at the Fulford Ams (capacity c. 125), then a year or so later here at The Crescent. Now they’re headlining at the 1,000-capacity Stylus at Leeds Uni, where I’ve seen Swans and Dinosaur Jr. And on the strength of tonight’s performance, I could imagine Pale Blue Eyes there after the release of their forthcoming second album. But, even if not, it’s clear they can’t quite believe they are where they are at this moment in time.
British Birds are a sound choice of support act. There’s next to no sonic resemblance, and visually, presentationally, they’re worlds apart, too, and it’s appreciated. It gets boring watching bands who are too alike back-to-back, and there’s always the risk the support will steal the headliners’ thunder.
They seem to have had about a dozen different lineups already, and while the music press have seemingly struggled to categorise them, with descriptions ranging from ‘indie’ to ‘psychedelic’ with ‘rock’ and ‘garage’ and ‘pop’ all being lobbed their way, but it’s not prevented them getting airplay on 6Music.
Their female singer / keyboardist, centre stage, first gives us first cowbell, then tambourine during first song. Throughout the set, she seems to spend more time bouncing around with the tambourine than playing the keyboard, and behind her, some dynamic and enthusiastic drumming defines their sound, which is a bit Dandy Warhols at times. I have never seen anyone attack a cowbell with so much force, but it makes them absolutely great to watch, being a band positively radiating energy centre stage. Stage left and right, the guitarist / lead singer and bassist are rather more static, focused on their instruments rather than presentation, but this dynamic works well. The three-way vocals add some really sweet harmonies to some lovely indie pop tunes in a varied and entertaining set, where the penultimate song goes a bit rockabilly. Definitely worth seeing.
British Birds
Pale Blue Eyes take the sound up a notch, not only in volume but quality. It’s clear, crisp, dense, with good separation and clarity, particularly in the drums and vocals, while they crank out dreamy shoegaze tunes with some rippling keyboards and lots of heavy tremolo. ‘TV Flicker’ landing second in the set provides an early highlight in a set that builds nicely, and it’s clear they’ve put some thought into this.
Early Ride make for an obvious comparison, but there’s more to it than that. The drummer plays motorik rhythms focused around the centre of the kit (incomplete contrast to the rolling, expansive style of British Birds’ drummer), barely bending an elbow, confirming movement largely to the wrists and just holding tight, steady beats.
Laser synths and repetitive riffs edge into space rock territory, locking into mesmeric grooved with Hawkwind vibes. In this combination of shoegaze and psych, I’m reminded if second-wave shoegaze act The Early Years circa 2005.
Pale Blue Eyes
The audience demographic is split largely into two camps: twenty-somethings – the band’s peers, as you’d likely expect – and middle-agers who came to this stuff when they themselves were in their teen and early twenties. I have to confess to falling into the latter bracket, having discovered Ride and Slowdive via John Peel and Melody Maker, and seeing the former at Wembley at BBC Radio 1’s ‘Great British Music Weekend’ supporting The Cure in January 1991 (which I’d have enjoyed more if I hadn’t been coming down with flu, and the three-mile walk home from the coach drop-off back in Lincoln at 2am, in sub-zero temperatures did me for a week). But, consequently, lots of insanely tall middle aged blokes swarmed to the front, busting moves, lofting their arms, and dancing like they’re swimming with their hands behind their backs (or in their pockets) while simultaneously shooting shaky videos on their phones like wankers. I mean, who’s going to want to watch those?
Pale Blue Eyes
Most of the between-song dialogue was about how awed the band were to be playing the city and venue for the first time, and judging by their expressions, this was a genuine sentiment. But rather than allow that awe to overcome them, they fed off the exuberance of the substantial crowd and amplified it back. The bassist in particular looked like he was having the time of his life.
Their hour-long set culminates in blistering climactic sustained crescendo. There doesn’t need to be more, and there’s nowhere to go beyond this point for an encore. It’s a satisfying and natural-feeling conclusion to a joyous performance.
Maybeshewill rose to prominence on the crest of the instrumental post-rock wave swiftly on their arrival in 2005, and while many of their titles and song structures, with brooding passages splintered by bold crescendos, were quintessentially of the time, what set them apart from their peers was the electronic element of their sound. Between 2008 and 2014, they released four albums, with Fair Youth being the final one. And then they called it a day the following year.
Something happened in the years which followed. Not to the band themselves, but in the culture. As so often happens, their reputation and the appreciation for the band seemed to grow in their absence. There’s inevitably an element of nostalgia involved, but with fashions being ever cyclical, post-rock’s popularity was somewhat diminished by 2014, largely due to oversaturation, no doubt – how many instrumental bands playing seven-minute songs with chiming guitars and crashing crescendos all wanting to be Explosions in the Sky do you need to see on a single evening, and how many such lineups do you need in a week, month, year, lifetime? But as time passed, there emerged a new generation who hadn’t been going to gigs in the mid-noughties, who’d missed out, and thus grew a renewed interest.
Maybeshewill reconvened in 2020, releasing No Feeling Is Final in 2021, an album which, seven years after Fair Youth, further cemented their style and certainly didn’t disappoint.
As 2024 marks the ten-year anniversary of Fair Youth, it seems an appropriate time to review the merits of a definitive album – here, reassessed, remixed, and remastered. Jamie Ward comments of the new mix and master: “With 10 years more mixing experience under my belt I feel a bit better placed to conquer the wall of sound and get a little more separation between the instruments to really bring out the details of those arrangements. In general I’ve tried to make things hit a little harder and be bit a more vibrant and technicolour.”
I haven’t been anal enough to play the two versions side by side or to really focus on those minute details which some fans will likely revel in for hours, and I sincerely hope they do. There is a certain and quite specific pleasure in rediscovering an album you know intimately, finding fresh details and dynamics along thee way, but this is perhaps more the material for fan forums and individuals to immerse themselves in.
For me, it’s been a long time since I’ve listened to this album – not because I don’t rate it, but because of the sheer volume of music in the world vying for my attention.
From the very start, rolling piano and brooding strings pair with chiming guitars, strolling bass, and solid percussion to make mood music that’s not meek or fay, but driven and dynamic, with remarkable texture and depth, and it draws you in instantly. There’s a magical musicality to ‘In Amber’, largely derived from the piano which ripples and rolls its way through the surging guitar.
The title track is one of many which, with vocals, would likely have made an epic academy-size venue-filling anthem, and ‘All Things Transient’ has soundtrack written all over it. The quality of the compositions – and their execution is impossible to fault, as they present back-to-back tunes which are solid, energetic, expansive, imaginative. ‘Sanctuary’ is mellow but at thew same time has drive and energy, pulsating shoegaze with a solid rock spine in its tight rhythm section, which stands in contrast to the rather more mathy, jazzy, folksy ‘Asiatic’.
The album’s eleven songs showcase a real range, and Fair Youth represents not only a high point in the band’s career, but also in the post-rock oeuvre. It’s an album of a rare consistent quality, and holds up as well ten years on as it did at the time – if not, perhaps, better.
Back in April 2020, writing on the release of their second album, Prepared for a Nightmare, I remarked that it had been four years since their debut, Observed in a Dream, and it had felt like an eternity. And here we are, a further four years on, and ‘A Foretold Ecstasy’ has landed as the prelude to album number three, due in the autumn.
Here, they’re straight in with that tight, solid rhythm section – a chunky bass with a hint of chorus to fatten it out while also giving it that classic spectral goth sound, melded to a relentless four-four metronomic thump, minimal cymbals, no flamboyant fills, just taut, a tense, rigid spine around which the body of the song grows. This, of course, is the foundation of that vintage gothy / post punk sound which originated with The Sisters of Mercy and, thanks largely to Craig Adams – who is arguably one of the greatest bassists of all time by virtue of his simple style of nailing a groove and just holding it down for the duration – carried on in The Mission. The Mish may lack some of the style and certainly the atmosphere and lyrical prowess of The Sisters, but the musical ingredients – and in particular that unflinching rhythm section – are fundamentally the same. And so it is that while the dominance of that thunking bass and bash-bash-bash snare may have become something of a formula, it’s hard to beat and absolutely defines the genre.
Mayflower Madame have always sat more toward The Mission end of the spectrum, whipping up songs which owe a certain debt to Wayne Hussey’s layered, cadent guitar style. But what they bring that’s unique is a swirly, psychedelic / shoegaze hue, a fuzzy swirl of texture and light. There’s a dark decadence, a lascivious richness to Mayflower Madame that accentuates the dramatic aspects of the gothiness: theatrical, flamboyant, but without being hammy or campy. And of course, Trond Fagernes’ vocals drift in an ocean of reverb, and the cumulative effect isn’t simply atmospheric: it carries you away on a sea of mesmeric sound.
With layers of synth which drift like mist across a production that balances dreaminess with a driving urgency, ‘A Foretold Ecstasy’ floats between haunting verses and surging choruses – and it’s hinting at their best work to date.
Letters and things lost have an almost mythical status in the field of literature. So many volumes are dedicated to the reproduction of exchanges between authors of revered status, and are poured over, clawed over, by both fans and academics. Many writers of great novels were also great letter-writers, and the letters often serve to build not only biographical depth and detail but also shed light on the development of the novels, that mystical ‘creative process’. Much of history exists in letters – the rich primary source material from which we piece together the picture and assemble a coherent narrative. It may be a construct, but it’s a necessary one when it comes to understanding the world and how we collectively came to arrive at the present.
The fact no-one writes letters anymore is a great loss. The same thought and effort simply doesn’t go into emails, and they tend to be considerably shorter, too, especially in the last decade or so. In fact, the quality of communication has slumped through the floor in recent years. Emails volumes – at least, ones that aren’t transactional in some way, have plummeted in favour of WhatsApps and messenger missives via FaceBook, Twitter, etc. It’s hard to really articulate just what’s been lost over the last few years, besides simply the art of in-depth, detailed longform communications, but with anything more than five lines long likely to be dismissed as TL;DR, it’s significant. I digress… because there are rare avenues open to expand on these matters.
Benjamin Heal, one of those multi-faceted, polyartistic individuals who is hard to pin down due to the sheer range of his output, has, through the years, pursued an academic career with a focus on William S. Burroughs – a prodigious writer of letters – and performed experimental noisy indie under the guise of Cowman, sharing stages with the likes of Trumans Water and Gum Takes Tooth, as well as his more electro-centric vehicle Coaxial.
Now resident in Taiwan, his latest project seems to bring together these elements of a diverse life. The material on this, the debut release from The Lost Letters – which finds Heal working with Fulia, is a calm and calming collection of delicate songs. The duo offer a quite gentle and melodic set of tunes in which is mostly centres around mellow acoustic-led indie, and slow, sparsely-arranged, soporific shoegaze and it’s not merely projection on my part in detecting a wistful, vaguely nostalgic air permeating the songs. The songs effortlessly drift and weave, Fulya’s vocals adding a layer of sound rather than easily audible lyrics.
The seven-minute ‘Cecille’ has, by its trilling gentility, nothing to do with The Walking Dead: it’s a graceful exploratory work which is mellow, melodic, and carries heavy hints of The Cure circa Disintegration thanks in no small part to its fulsome, airy bass sound and crystalline guitars, and it’s fair to reference Cocteau Twins at this juncture, too.
Things take a turn for the darker and more discordant on the lugubrious, plodding ‘Cut’, which scrapes and scratches for another seven minutes. With its muttered, monotone vocals and insistent sparsity, it offers hints of Shellac and latter day Band of Susans, in contrast to the soft acoustic instrumental work of ‘Route Rute’. These songs are on the longer side by necessity: repetition has greater impact over duration, and if the literary allusions and lifts by means of the deployment of the cut-up technique devised by Burroughs and Gysin are largely lost in the mix, the overall effect of discomfort and disjointedness remains strong throughout the set. ‘Crystal Skies’ is murky, with a drifting ambience spun through with a softly picked guitar, before ‘Sails and Sou’wester’ brings the album full circle to its nautically-themed beginning. While inviting comparisons to Slowdive and Cranes, it cascades dreamily into a mesmerising sea of sound, so richly evocative that you ache as it drifts on toward the horizon, leaving you reaching for something intangible.
Critics often write of craft, but the most moving music often comes from intuition and feeling, and this is moving in the subtlest of ways. Quite simply, The Lost Letters is a beautiful album.
Aural Aggravation 