Whilst it’s not worth losing sleep over, the tags of shoegaze, dream pop, indie rock and indie pop have somewhat lost consistent meaning over time and through differing geographical points of reference. At a more fundamental level though, the commonality across such elastically bordered genres is the eternal push and pull of melody and dissonance. Which is a healthily creative tussle that joins the disparate dots between the below new releases, in varying distinctive combinations.
Reappearing belatedly with a second album is the still bemusingly anointed trio of Helen.
The supergroup of sorts, compromised of vocalist and guitarist Liz Harris (Grouper), drummer Jed Binderman (Eternal Tapestry, Heavy Winged) and bassist Scott Simmons (Eat Skull et al) whose 2015’s The Original Faces debut has become a cult curveball for fuzz-sawing songcraft, seemed unlikely to make another record after over a decade’s layoff.
Yet, in an era when some artists are arguably too prolific, Helen’s hiatus is actually quite welcome. It certainly allows the resultant Linda’s Head (Kranky) to breathe out longer than its slender thirty-two-minute runtime would suggest. Devotees of Harris’s still enigmatic Grouper œuvre will certainly feel well catered for here, as her core crepuscular compositions are given an opportunity to hatch out gently as well as to take flight, with the help of the intuitive Binderman and Simmons.
This translates into pieces that veer from the fleetingly diaphanous to the epically immersive, which all require some cranked-up airings to absorb successfully. Therefore, there is extra capacity for prettier moments (with the gauzy “Faraway”, the clement campfire-friendly “Dead Shark” and the murmured acid-folk of “Black And Quiet Love”) and low-slung prowling (“Stay With Me”).
Whilst more in continuity with The Original Faces, albeit with more tunefulness shot through the din, is a fresh slew of guitar-pedal punchers. This leads us through lushly topped Last Splash-like stomping (“Starline” and “Dead Shark II”); radiant self-harmonising with garage-kosmische manœuvres (“Endless Sky”); and murkily churning psychedelic blissfulness (the title track and “Darkblue”).
The LP’s distinctive closer, “Canyon”, arguably provides the finest eight-and-a-half minutes overall, as it sprawls through dreamily cascading vocals, drone-pulsing hypnotics and wandering bass lines, leaving you wanting a sequel to the unassumingly captivating Linda’s Head a tad sooner than around 2037.
Also formally returning with the outcome of fresh studio activities after a decade-long interval – briefly punctuated by a 2021 expanded reissue for 2005’s inaugural Widows – are Sennen.
An ensemble that previously never quite slotted into an easy pigeon-hole between the modus operandi of early-‘90s shoegaze classicism and late-‘90s post-rock, although imbued with strong traits of both, the long-in-the-works New Quiet (Sonic Cathedral) takes things much further and more decisively down the quartet’s most melodious routings – with deeply satisfying results.
In some respects, this feels like the produce of an entirely reborn operation, one that is warmer and wiser whilst still stylistically adventurous in support of a now more ‘words-first’ methodology. Replete with lyrics focused on — but not weighed down by – navigating mid-life travails, New Quiet is effectively a shrewdly poetic self-help manual in Gen X sonic binding. With frontman Rich Kelleway less warily externalising his inner-voice combination of Teenage Fanclub’s Raymond McGinley and Gerard Love, the arrangements shift seamlessly between the soaring and the intimate, as well as a few places in between.
Proceedings begin radiantly with the adversity-overcoming “I Can See The Future”, swelling layer-by-layer from electro-acoustic balminess through to full-on noise-coated grandness, like an imagined lost Andy Bell and Sonic Boom creative hook-up. Thereafter, comes a clutch of shimmering chuggers with dual hints of Sonic Youth’s Daydream Nation and Painful-to-I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One-epoch Yo La Tengo (“Dig”, “Today’s The Day” and “Waves”) to give the record a robust backbone.
Wrapping in and around these more amplified affairs appears spectral-folk elegance (“Waking Up”); beatific pastoral-baroque expansiveness (“Birds”); less-polished echoes of World Party’s Bang! (“Here It Comes”); utterly beguilingly hybridising of Curtains-era Tindersticks and Spiritualized circa Ladies And Gentleman We Are Floating In Space (“Something Made Me Think Of You”); and comforting flashbacks to the most pared-back Jay Ferguson-led moments in the Sloan catalogue (for the CD-only title track).
A sublime suite full of solace, reassurance and hope in dark times, New Quiet is undoubtedly Sennen’s finest full-length statement to date and one of 2026’s highest watermarks to boot.
Fitting the pattern, Hidden Smile (Precious Recordings / Shelf Life) is the product of Portland, Oregon’s The Autocollants reemergence from a long absence – or perhaps more precisely, following a quarter-century of amicable separation. Having only delivered a string of short-form releases and oddments (later anthologised) during an original late ‘90s existence, the platter in hand is therefore – at long last — the group’s de facto debut LP. Fortunately, prolonged deferment has not been of any detriment to the quality.
On the first couple of airings, the collection unfurls like a rediscovered if not-so-distinctive curio from the most winsome side of the Sarah Records tape vaults. Yet, upon undertaking a series of successive spins, a raft of hidden depths redemptively reveals this to be a richer and more diverse record. With Laura Watling’s vocal and lyrical presence sitting somewhere between Blueboy’s Gemma Malley and Heavenly’s Amelia Fletcher, around which her bandmates rotate dexterously, the quartet hit and sustain a connective groove that runs through the duration.
Consequently, we’re spoilt right from the start with the New Order-alike bass-driven levitations of “Azurite”. This gives way to bobbing Feelies flavourings (“Every Social Interaction”); mesmeric Peter Momtchiloff-meets-Johnny Marr jangling (“Version 1”); fictionalised Miki Berenyi and J Mascis collaborations (“Situate Me” and “April”); Bizarro-epoch Wedding Present recollections (“Not Enough”); Isobel Campbell-period Belle And Sebastian stylings (“South”); and a contemplative trumpet-embellished nod to pre-electronic Everything But The Girl (“Bossa”) at the journey’s bittersweet end.
Proving on several levels that patience remains an artistic virtue, Hidden Smile is a rewarding and vindicating showcase of The Autocollants’ somewhat unintended long-game.
Whilst time and space goes against longer dissections here, honourable mentions must also go to other enterprises following in the melody vs dissonance slipstream of the aforementioned long-players – albeit ones not subject to prolonged hibernations.
Carrying on from last year’s bucolic and stripped down Many White Horses — in chronological sequence rather than æsthetical approach – is Firestations’ International Dust on Lost Map Records.
Reconnecting to and expanding upon the sounds and spirit of 2023’s Thick Terrain, the Walthamstow quintet forge a selection that adroitly finds shared space for rousing Pentangle-meets-Jefferson Airplane arcadian psych-rock (“Hidden Face”); motorik art-rock shapes borrowed from close fellow-travellers The Leaf Library (“All The Angels”); hypnotic Talk Talk-tinged ’80s synth-pop noir (“An Apparition” and “Given Power”); and less portentousness extracted amalgamated elements from Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here (“Beginners”). Extant Firestations followers should be more than content to pick this up.
And finally joining the club is Loner Deluxe’s Sound Tracks on Rusted Rail. A low-key but likeable mini-album addendum to the longer and wordless Living Room long-player released just a few months ago, this six-tracker offers more from the same menu, but with more of Cecilia Danell’s vocals suffused into Keith Wallace’s homemade audio stews.
Thus, woozily warming bookend highlights “2.14 a.m. August 29th” and “One Last Drink In The Departure Lounge” find the pair charmingly partaking in co-ed mic duties within space-age Lou Barlow settings. Sandwiched between comes cosmic noodles cooked with off-centre analogue electronics (“Mental Ohm” and “Dusk Chorus”) and some ethereal dubscaping (“Fog Lit Cave” and “Neon Hills”), which could simultaneously please fans of both Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark and Grandaddy’s primordial phases. A welcome micro-bundle all told.
-Adrian-
