Shoegaze is having a moment.
It’s not the first moment for the cult-fave genre—a hypnotic amalgam of gossamer vocals and distorted guitars played, often loudly, through an army of nifty effects pedals. Not long after Shoegaze emerged from the British Isles in the late 1980s, its first wave crested on the backs of fuzzed-out bands like Cocteau Twins, Slowdive, and My Bloody Valentine.
But a shoegaze revival is definitely underway, fueled by young people discovering the genre’s giants and heretofore obscure bands like Duster, through TikTok clips and Spotify playlists. At the same time, a surge of new shoegaze-influenced (but boundary-stretching) bands have bubbled up, including They Are Gutting A Body Of Water, Wednesday, and Feeble Little Horse.
For fans, however, shoegaze’s moment never really went away.