Spotlights - Alchemy for the Dead (2023)

There is a visible and exciting wave of bands from the States, who combine nugaze and heavy rock/metal influences. One of them is the New York trio Spotlights, who debuted back in 2016 and this year released their perhaps best album to date, called Alchemy for the Dead.

Extremely heavy, crunchy guitars meet slowcore pace and blissfully soft vocals. This is Spotlights' path to the listeners' hearts. And it works like a charm. You can clearly feel on your shoulders the weight of this music: the metal-like riffs, the monumental cascades of guitar sounds, it all works great in the not-so-hasty or sometimes clearly as slow as possible pace. So the music is not far from bands like Cult of Luna, but the vocals are a perfect counter-weight here. In the Nothing, SOM or Holy Fawns' fashion, they are smoothed out to become a flow-rich, slow, but also super melodic addition to the heavy music.

To spice everything up, there are moments where the metal atmosphere take over and gives the blackened empowerment to the dreamy whole. Still, I don't think I'd call this music blackgaze, but heavy shoegaze makes sense to me. 

Alchemy for the Dead costs 9 USD.

Check: Sunset Burial

Country: New York, US

Genre: heavy nugaze

Label: Ipecac Recordings

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