Delighting in its mixture of dreamy shoegaze and ’90s alt-rock invigoration, “Feel The Glow” serves as the memorable lead single for In The Blur, the upcoming sophomore album from Olympia, WA-based band Waves Crashing. Their 2025 album Effection was amongst our favorite albums of 2025, and “Feel The Glow” certainly suggests that its full-length follow-up will continue the project’s knack for fantastic songwriting and expansive rock productions. Since forming in 2019, the quartet has become a staple of the Pacific Northwest scene, blending the immersive textures of shoegaze with an often driving post-punk pulse.
A crisp guitar jangling quickly gives way to a blast of thunderous distortion, fully embracing a shoegaze-y textural pull in that initially brief eruption. “If it’s all the same to you, let it show,” an introspective vocal feeling emerges alongside the dreamier realm of guitar and bass synergy, ascending thereafter into warming vocal reassurances and equally caressing guitar ardor. “It’s alright, you’ll be okay. I know you’re somewhere in between,” the vocals then let out as the sludgy guitar distortion invokes a ’90s alt-rock fierceness, preceded by a debonair title-touting encouragement. The whirring guitar tones and laid-back vocals coexist throughout with replay-inducing appeal, strutting a throwback shoegaze/alt-rock cohesion while still remaining distinctive to Waves Crashing’s own brand of anthemic fervency.
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This and other tracks featured this month can be streamed on the updating Obscure Sound’s ‘Emerging Singles’ Spotify playlist.
