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The Haunted Youth - Dawn of the Freak (2022)

czwartek, 9 lipca 2026

The Haunted Youth - Boys Cry Too (2026)

The Haunted Youth from Belgium may be one of the most interesting bands making a tasty, modern blend of various gazey genres that can't be directly connected to any of them, but works fantastically as a whole. The dream poppy synthwavey shoegazey emo rock or whatnot outfit released their second album and it's as good as their debut from 2022.

What is great about their music is the sheer catchiness of each and every song on the album. You can go through the list of tracks and tick every position in the Am I going to Sing it With the Band column. The short and sweet one-liner chorus in In My Head or the chanting-like vocals in Deathwish or the almost r'n'b electronica in Wake Up. But when the music deepens and swallows, when the synths are layered until they fill out all the available space and when the compositions reach the euphoric optimum, this is where I feel the album the most. No wonder that Emo Song seems to be the most popular out of the whole release, it does the perfect job of drawing the audience in blissful noise. And so does the ballad-like Falling to Pieces.

It seems that Joachim Liebens' outfit gains a lot of recognition in Western Europe, I'd love to see them live one day. My only hope is that they won't decide to change their music to please the broader audience and will stay true to the dreamy/shoegazey music that made me notice them in the first place.

Boys Cry Too costs 11 EUR (8.99 GBP).

Check: Emo Song

Country: Belgium

Genre: shoegazey indie rock

Label: Anti-Pop/PIAS

środa, 8 lipca 2026

Tokyo Shoegazer - Remains (2026)

I love how certain Japanese projects use their names to clearly state what to expect from their music. Tokyo Shoegazer play shoegaze. And are from Tokyo. 'nuff said. This makes it all about music and the classic noisy but airy gaze here proves it can work so well on its own. Also, somehow this is another Japanese band with a song about flowers, but unlike MONO, they stick to one track only.

Founded by Hiroshi Sasabuchi in 2010, the band has a rich history that includes a hiatus period and a comeback, 6 albums with two critically acclaimed at RateYourMusic database and many live gigs in Asia. The sound of their music is something most of us would call a "classic shoegaze": the noisy and the fuzzy are indeed noisy and fuzzy, the sound quality is not as important as the loudness and, finally, Kyoko Sahara's vocals are extremely, soothingly airy. What else do you want from a shoegaze album?

Well, I guess you could expect some catchy melodies, but the Japanese deliver here as well: the ear-catching riffs in Wisteria are cool but my favourite track has to be Vega with its dreamy melodies meeting the heaviest guitars of the album at the end and this kind of contrast is what does it for me. What a beauty.

Remains costs 12 USD.

Check: Vega

Country: Japan

Genre: classic shoegaze

Label: HigherHell Records

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Kielichy - Punkty płonące (2026)

wtorek, 23 czerwca 2026

Kielichy - SAWANT (2026)

Kielichy were featured on the blog already this year, but it was BEFORE. Back then, the Punkty płonące EP heralded a change and now we can already witness where the artist's discovery voyage landed them. SAWANT, called after the French for "scholar", but also a medical condition which is basically how autistic people are presented in media, album makes a huge impression from the beautiful cover art up to the lyrical and musical parts of the compositions.

I can see some similarities with one of my favourite albums of the recent times: Pothamus' Abur with similar weight put on the atmosphere and spirituality that comes from some kind of religion but ultimately is more than that. And when the psychedelic and sacral atmosphere is set up, here with the unhurried pace, dense guitars and characteristic vocals, the post-rock wall of sound appears out of nowhere to make the compositions' gravity even more emphasized. I have already said it a couple of times this year, but this is a good time for Polish dark psychedelic projects and this album is another prove to support the claim.

I've seen their music being described as "gothic post-rock" now and I can see why: it's not only the slow and moody music, it's also the themes. The band's name being the Polish word for "chalices" (which I read now in a very religious, perhaps ironic way) is one thing, but the lyrics all over SAWANT are very strongly leaning towards the mysterious and the religious with references to the importance of blood (Pieśń robaków), heavens (Puste niebo) or an entity hanging from a tree (Wisielec). But, judging from tracks like Puste niebo (which means "empty skies" but also could mean "Empty Heaven"), the religious here is just a decor, but if you employ it, you become part of it. Hence "gothic post-rock".

SAWANT costs 5 EUR (20 PLN).

Check: Puste niebo

Country: Poland

Genre: gothic post-rock

Band photo by Daria Izworska.

piątek, 19 czerwca 2026

Martyna Basta - Winged in Collapse (2026)

When you are called a "sonic alchemist", you know there is something special in your music. Martyna Basta, Polish composer and singer/songwriter based in the city of Kraków (my neighbour I presume) released her third album (but first under the acclaimed 7k records) filled with ambitious electronica turned ambient pop music.

The signature sound of this album focuses on the artful electronic samples sewn together into a sonic canvas on which beautiful though enigmatic vocals are displayed. This is not an easy kind of neoclassical electronica, it requires attention and brain power to process everything that is happening around you. But it's satisfying if enjoyed properly. I love the vocals, even if they are used sparingly, they show the range of the artist's voice and add to the mysterious atmosphere of the release.

I love that Basta invited some interesting guests, especially the harp-electronic duo LEYA (which, coincidentally, has also some Polish roots) in Laid and the British experimental rapper Rainy Miller in 2674. This is a beautiful, airy and ambitious electronic soundscape with elements of chamber pop appearing here and there that only make it more engaging to listen to.

Winged in Collapse costs 11 EUR.

Check: Laid

Country: Poland

Genre: experimental ambient pop

Label: 7k

czwartek, 18 czerwca 2026

Lune - Into Eternal Sleep (2026)

A mysterious project from the mountains of Austria (or the Danube's valley of Austria possibly, but I wanted to be as epic as the music here). The artist known only as M with no social media as far as I know, released what seems to be his 4th album and filled it with very, very very cinematic, if not pompous metal music.

I have little idea on the divisions between metal genres and, frankly, I rarely care. I usually listen only to the atmospheric ones that border post-metal as close as possible. You can safely say that Lune's two-track album is one of those exceptions. Atmospheric to the core, sounding like a soundtrack to an epic, possible viking-themed (probably because of the title) cinematic production, even if slightly lacking on the quality front, Into Eternal Sleep sounds more like a movie score than a metal album which I count as a big plus. The compositions are interestingly complicated and beautifully unhurried, the more metal passages really seem to underline something important, a pinnacle point that really matters.

The rest of the compositions are more ethereal than heavy, more like a dream played with guitars and keys. The valleys. But when the cinematic ecstasy kicks in, you certainly know it.

Into Eternal Sleep costs 8 EUR.

Check: The Silent Departure

Country: Austria

Genre: cinematic black metal

środa, 17 czerwca 2026

LYR - Dark Sky Reservation (2026)

The combination of spoken word poetry and alternative music is something that appeals to me a lot: so this year's BIG SPECIAL will be LYR - similarly hailing from UK but besides that, extremely different: instead of the post-punk spirit, LYR combines the unique vocals with artsy and pretty minimalist electronica and neoclassical music. This is LYR's fourth album and I'm very excited to discover the rest of their discography.

The lyrics here are, of course, the clue. And I already love some of the phrases/sentences coined for the album (especially the chorus in Blah! Blah! Blah! with the actual medical condition choice blindness embraced and used in a lyrical way) as well as particularly clever and sometimes hilarious word craftsmanship. Again, Blah! Blah! Blah! is a great example here: a song I'm genuinely as invested in the "plot" of the song as in the song as a musical entity in general. As could be expected (I knew, there is a post-punky element to this music), the album is very much a commentary about the world we live in as the artists describe themselves as "navigating towards sightings of hopefulness and constancy in an increasingly bewildering and storm-battered world".

The album title as well as a number of songs on it reference also the changing climate which is a) as interesting a topic as it is terrifying and b) not that much touch upon in music. Yet. But it has to be said that the band create a perfectly catchy songs as well. And with ease too. Eclipse is a perfect example of a song that steals the chorus from some kind of radio hit and repurposes it to accompany another brillant sheet of lyrics.

Dark Sky Reservation costs 11 EUR (9 GBP).

Check: Blah! Blah! Blah!

Country: UK

Genre: spoken word art rock

Label: Real World Records