the Top 10 Shoe Gaze Albums of 2023

 

Shoe-gaze has seen a comeback this year, though as a genre it branches out into dream pop and post-rock so both of those are included in this list, it just makes for an easier title rather than the Top 10, Shoe gaze, dream pop, drugged out indie rock, and hipster post-rock albums of 2023, which is a lot. These are not the coolest, but the best, fuck what other blogs say,.   After I sort through the top 10 albums of all the respective genres, I use those lists to compile the top 10 albums of the year. 2023. The very fact these bands made it on the list speaks to how great these albums are, so it's not a slight that the number 8 album is above the 9th album, there is something that just gives it an edge that makes me want to listen to it more. After all, we can try to look cool and pick the hippest bands for a list, but at the end of the day what makes an album the best is that it makes you want more, you look forward to listening to it again. Perhaps you can find your next favorite on this list; and have included links to reviews of these albums if you want to check out the audio on these guys. Anyway here are the top 10 Shoe gaze albums of 2023.

10- Slowdive - "Everything is Alive" 

The British Shoe - gaze icons are releasing a new album and they packed their synths. Not to be bound by the rules of the sub-genre they help create. Only makes sense that Slowdive should see a groundswell of popularity with the resurgence of shoe-gaze, the facts being they are pound-for-pound a better band than My Bloody Valentine when it comes to just playing their damn instruments. It would be easy to assume that they would go straight to the top of the list , instead of getting what is more of an honorable mention spot, but that is where we are this year, some comebacks work more of hype that the rest of music media buys into. 

https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2023/09/slowdive-everything-is-alive.html

9- A Horrible Death to a Horrible Man- "Days Gone By" 

It was my second listen to this album I put on the headphones to ingest all that they have going on. Some of this is more in your face than others. I would not say comparisons to Deafheaven are unfounded. They capture a similar static buzz. The downtrodden vocals have more in common with Interpol. This detached croon sits back in the mix. This also serves as a case for when the unique nature of the swirl they hit you with takes you into it's arms before you question the cause of the hypnosis.

https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2023/05/a-horrible-death-to-horrible-man-days.html

8-Iress - "Solace" 

I was a big fan of the band's 2020 album "Flaw".  This ep carries the kind of raw empty longing that the album did but finds them drifting in a more shoe-gazing direction. The guitar lays back rather than really attacking. Which I am fine with if it is giving Michelle Malley more room to flex her pipes. The best band you are likely not aware of. 

https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2023/10/gothtober-iress-solace.html

 7- Explosions in the Sky - "End" 

 The Texas post-rock band's 8th album proves that to have had such a lasting career as an instrumental band they must be doing something right,. I listen to most music for vocals so it is normally hard to sell me on something like this. I came aboard as a fan in 2007 thanks to their album "All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone" which has enough melancholy and longing in the guitars that it won me over. That same feeling is hinted at in this album while branching out into more expansive sounds. 

https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2023/09/explosions-in-sky-end.html

6-Mad Honey - "Satellite Aphrodite" 

Oklahoma is not my first guess for where Shoe Gaze is going to be coming from, but it is as good of a place as any. There is a hazy web of effects and dense dreamy layers of guitar that recalls the early 90s soaking the rest of the album. Some verses are allowed to breathe amongst soft to louder dynamics in play. Vocalist Tiff Sutcliffe has plaintive coo that cuts through the layers of guitars swirling around her voice most of the time.

https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2023/09/mad-honey-satellite-aphrodite.html

  5- Hotline TNT - "Cartwheel" 

Here is a band that leans into the noise side of shoegaze that owes equal amounts to My Bloody Valentine and Sonic Youth. Stone Roses is also a fair reference point regarding how the more prominent vocal melodies are handled. In many cases bands replicating this era of music focus more on capturing this sound and less on the song itself, which is not the case here,.This album solidified them as one of the major players in the current shoe-gaze revival today. Just cause they are hipsters from the Brooklyn scene doesn't mean there is no substance here.   

https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2023/12/hotline-tnt-cartwheel.html

  4-Helga - "Wrapped In Mist" 

The first song from this Swedish band hits you with a lot. It takes what artists like Myrkur and to a lesser extent Chelsea Wolfe does and runs it through a filter of progressive metal. Thus bringing closer to what Marriages used to do, or even the Gathering. It is big-sounding and has a wonderful blend of dynamics. 

https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2023/10/helga-wrapped-in-mist.html

3- Drop Nineteens -"Hard Light" 

 This Boston band came about back in 1990 and have read the room enough to know it's time to show the shoe-wave revival how it's done. They lay the atmosphere on perhaps thicker than most while still being able to write poppy songs when called to. This album shows how important they are to this genre, and deserves to be a name more widely mentioned when it comes to shoe-gaze. 

https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2023/12/drop-nineteens-hard-light.html

2-Vulture Feather - "Liminal Fields" 

If Fugazi did not have Ian MacKaye's straight edge past haunting them and had done drugs while writing 'Steady Diet of Nothing" perhaps the result would not be unlike what unfolds on this album. This is a California band by way of Baltimore, which might be what preserves some of the integrity here. This is not to say they are a Fugazi tribute band by any means, the guitar jangles more like the Velvet Underground at times. The vocals have an expressive manner that reminds me of Shudder to Think though with none of the dramatic yodeling. There is that odd middle ground between emo, post-rock, and shoe-gaze that bands like Mineral and the Gloria Record also traversed, which is what is captured here

https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2023/07/vulture-feather-liminal-fields.html

1- Give Up to Failure - "Cocoon" 

Here is another album that was never on my radar for the year, and no clue why it was not.  I was unsure what to expect going into this album, I just pressed play and was hit by a wonderful mix of dark sounds. This Polish band takes the ambiance of shoe-gaze and pumps it full of post-sludge muscle. The vocals are a depressive moan that is more often than not swallowed by reverb and mixed behind the guitars. They build off more epic shoe-gaze cascades and ebbs down to allow melodies to breathe. With depressing lyrics that seem to mull addiction.  They brought everything just right to earn their place here. 

https://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2023/10/give-up-to-failure-cocoon.html