“Raw Blue” by Whirr

Here’s another release that just snuck in before the end of 2024. Released on Christmas Day, Whirr’s Raw Blue finds the once-controversial shoegaze outfit delivering another batch of blissed out, eadrum-rupturing beauty.

The album’s title track has fuzzed out guitars and coruscating riffs a-plenty, but buried underneath the layers, the band’s vocals and lyrics evince a certain starry-eyed romanticism — “I’m watching you rain over me/As much as the blue in the sea/Your endless ways over me/Keep crashing into me” — that’s as much a hallmark of the shoegaze genre as any sonic element.

Raw Blue was self-released and is currently available via Bandcamp. Physical formats will be released by The Funeral Party in April 2025.