Last Ice - Last Ice (2021)

Last Ice is a combination of two shoegazey bands: Bloody Knives and We Are Parasols. While I don't know much about the latter, the Texans of the former have been one of those fresh and very good takes on nugaze. Together with their Oregon and Georgia-based counterparts, they master this even more to such an extent that their debut album Last Ice seems to easily be one of the best shoegaze releases of the year.

This is clearly not just indie rock with noisy add-ons, it's shoegaze in its best, one that combines Slowdive's delicateness with MBV's mystery, one that sounds like homogeneous sea of powerful sound but at the same time pampers the audience with the quality of lulling sounds. The combination of two bands, among other things, results in having two vocals: very dream pop-like, subtle male one and the second, female, folk-like airy, sounding as if Enya decided to leave her castles and start a shoegaze band. And the latter provide what can be described as the uniqueness factor for this project. They don't sound like anything I know.

They do, however, tend to get lost within the overpowered guitar and synths-based backgrounds. On the other hand, the longer the album goes, the more electronic and trippy the music gets. So Curse is barely shoegaze anymore, more of ethereality-rich electronica of the best kind while Disease is perfectly trip-hoppy trip-hop. Until in the end it finishes with a gothic and industrial wierdo called, obviously, End.

Last Ice costs 8 USD.

Check: Chains

Country: Texas/Oregon/Georgia, US

Genre: ethereal nugaze

Label: No Movement Records

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