Mull It Over 002: The Shoe Fits
A look at the shoegaze renaissance and the Northern Irish acts flying the flag. Featuring Wynona Bleach and Virgins.
Shoegaze is back. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, or a shoe, for the last year you will have noticed the return of such ethereal song titles as ‘Glimmer’, ‘yearn’ and ‘alife’ to the alternative rock canon. And while this immediately seems very warm and fuzzy, best be warned: capital letters are looked upon with great suspicion here. enter at your own peril.
The aesthetic of shoegaze is perfect for the visual Instagram age. Lower case band names and song titles, colourful texturised artwork and gorgeous, shimmering melodies - it is, with hindsight, of little surprise that this once middle class-core genre has found new life inside the world of TikTok and YouTube Gen Zers.
The first wave of shoegaze can be traced back to the first three years of what can only be described as the decade that celebrates itself: the 1990s, with three majestic albums:
Ride - Nowhere (1990)
my bloody valentine - loveless (1991)
Slowdive - Souvlaki (1992)
Consider the above an entire genre’s equivalent of The Rolling Stones’ imperial period, where they unleashed maybe the greatest run of rock albums in existence between the years 1968 and 1972. Now, imagine that today The Rolling Stones were younger, cooler, came from Northern Ireland and were releasing some of the best shoegaze music heard in the last 30 years. That’s where we find nu-gaze (trademarked) bands like Wynona Bleach, Virgins and Wohn.
A lot has already been written about the revival of ‘the scene that celebrates itself’, but not a lot has been said about the amazing bands that are carrying the torch for shoegaze in 2024, in Northern Ireland. A special mention must go to Just Mustard, the Dundalk gazers who released the immensely impressive album Heart Under in 2022. For this newsletter however, I wanted to focus solely on acts from Northern Ireland.
Wynona Bleach
Fresh from releasing their long anticipated debut album Moonsoake in February 2022 and a considered opening slot for 90s alt-rock survivors Ash on last year’s Irish tour, Wynona Bleach would perhaps roll their eyes at being labelled so hastily as ‘shoegaze’. In truth, their sound explores so much more than the term, on its own, may suggest. However, the way in which Melyssa Shannon’s ethereal vocals float beautifully around fuzzed out guitars and sugary melody lines evokes the very welcome spirits of Cocteau Twins, and, interestingly, The Smashing Pumpkins. It’s a 90s love letter.
Their debut EP and accompanying single ‘Eyes Burning’ is a direct descendent of the early 1990s albums I mentioned above. If anything, in a Sonic Youth pre-Daydream Nation shift of gears, it were as if they decided that for Moonsoake, it was time to de-mist the window a little, and accept the obvious melodies a little easier than on the 2018 EP. The results aren’t as fuzzy as somebody who bought a house in 1992 with no deposit might expect, but there is an exciting new aspect to the genre which they have included on Moonsoake - namely, FUN.
Virgins
The latest brainchild of bandleader Michael Smyth (formerly of Paper Tigers), Virgins - of the new breed (pun intended) of shoegaze acts - most closely follows the mold set by bands like my bloody valentine. From the pink hue seen in most of their artwork, and what can only be described as a capital letter apocalypse on each release - Virgins have some bloody good fuzzy songs of their own. I have been listening to their latest single ‘s l o w l y, l o n g’ on repeat over the past week. How about that for a song title?
Virgins topped the ‘GAZEFEST’ bill at the Oh Yeah Centre in Belfast last summer, which also featured a plethora of Irish alternative acts. It’s a shame I started the newsletter too late to cover it. Sorry about that. Here’s hoping for a GAZEFEST 2. Or, rather ‘gazefest 2’?
Wohn
Wohn also featured on the ‘GAZEFEST’ lineup in 2023, and as they also hail from the North Coast of Ireland, I had little choice but to include them in the roundup here. Location aside, Wohn released the fantastic 3 track single ‘Fire, Smoke, Ashes’ last year, of which the title track was one of my absolute favourites of 2023. Imagine a Fat White Family, Slowdive, Elliott Smith supergroup. It sounds awful. It sounds brilliant.
How to Enjoy Shoegaze:
Wine: Dry German Riesling
Book: Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis
Where: The sofa
Thank you for reading Issue 002 of Mull It Over. I hope you enjoyed the read and discovered some fabulous new music too.
I have added tracks from the three Northern Irish artists featured to the Mull It Over Playlist, which you can find on Spotify, below: