Lara - Disambiguate (2025)

"Noisy bois from the south of the metro (Manila)" maintain my image of the South-East Asia's underground music: the lo-fi but honest noisy shoegazers rocking the scenes. Their new (and possibly debut) album comes with all of the subgenre's features and has to sound especially great live.

There's little doubt on who inspired the debutants from the Philippines: the sound of early shoegaze releases from UK is audible in every second of the album. The lo-fi vibes make the resemblance even more striking. The melodies are hidden under the guitar noise, but there are moments where they can shine as well (great Countenance) and generally, I prefer the faster, noisier parts of the album as the ballads, although they diversify the track list, feel unremarkable in my ears.

I do appreciate, however, that the band is not afraid of leaving the vocals behind in some longer parts, relying on the instruments creating a noisy but equally cozy atmosphere (so great in Sonoluminescence!). All in all, a very promising debut with a lot of different approaches to noisy music that, still, together sound very well and coherent.

Disambiguate costs 7 USD.

Check: Countenance

Country: The Philippines

Genre: garage shoegaze

Label: Calm Lake Records

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