Soaring - Soaring (2025)

The airiest blackgaze of the year may well be already released as Baptiste Belot's debut EP is both strikingly dreamy and wonderfully fast and heavy. The French artist makes his music as Soaring and the feeling of going through the skies with the engine built of euphoria is kind of what his self-titled album is all about.

This truly is "heavy reverb music for the heavy-hearted". Because while the music is filled with fast, synthy sounds that will always make me feel euphoric and hopeful, while the flow of the tracks has a power to take you in its hands and make you, almost literally, soar through the skies, the lyrics are bleak and gloomy. It's about the indifferent universe, being afraid of emotions, dying. This stark dissonance is where the album glows. Glowy, drowning with light dreams about the absurd of human existence, the ones we like the most.

Soaring costs 7 EUR.

Check: A Blurred Contour of Everything 

Country: France

Genre: euphoric blackgaze

Label: Stellar Frequencies

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Thy Pallor - Cafuné (2022)

I don't know much about offstream music in Turkey (or even mainstream with only the old pop star Tarkan coming to my mind) so it's always a pleasure to discover an exciting new band from the region. And so it is the case with Thy Pallor, Turkish band that attempts to mix the aggressive sound of black metal with synth-heavy blackgaze. They just debuted with an EP entitled Cafuné.

The band has a straightforward mission as "they are here to make you feel sentimental, yet heartwarming". And so they keep their music in the style of flow-rich synthgaze, a genre that is known for the fact that it's almost impossible to stop listening to its silk-smooth compositions that rely on guitar and synthesizer sound cooperation. This is spiced by very black metal-like vocals and this lo-fi atmosphere that always brings a lot of honesty and intimacy to the music. And although it is said to be focused on the melancholic atmosphere (which works especially where accompanied by lovely backing vocals in Ashen), there's a fair number of melodic riffs that make the whole EP a heavy and catchy thing.

Cafuné costs 3 USD.

Check: Ashen

Country: Turkey

Genre: synth black metal

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Cathedral Bells - Ether (2021)

When I first heard their single Dark Aura, I knew it's something big. And indeed, Ether makes a really good synthgazey dream pop concoction. And in my humble opinion, this album is actually a lot better than the debut and I couldn't not post about it here.

Their sound is based on very post-punk/synthpop synthesizers and generally flat sound that channel the stifling atmosphere of clubs in the 80s. as I imagine it. No wonder they call themselves as "born from the depths of obscure analog gems". On the other hand, the vocals are extremely airy with a strong taste for melodic singing. This makes the whole thing actually very lively and pretty much forcing the audience to dance with ease. And there's Dark Aura, a fantastic song that marries everything that's important in this music: extremely airy chorus, melodies, hazy atmosphere and post-punkish composition. That's some strong candidate for the dreamy hit of the year.

Ether costs 8 USD.

Check: Dark Aura

Country: Florida, US

Genre: dreamy synthgaze

Label: Spirit Goth Records

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