The hardest part about this job is trying to stay on top of a global scene of amazing bands putting out amazing music. It’s impossible to know everything all the time. We are a (very) small team constantly searching for beautiful underground music, not one of those giant music publications owned by stock brokers. What’s even harder is when you find a band like Faenza, Italy’s MONDAZE who put out their record Linger in November 2024 and realized this record definitely deserved consideration for our 2024 Shoegaze EOTYL but you didn’t consider it because you didn’t know it existed until now.
Linger is big and beautiful. It’s sweeping and dreamy. The fuzz is thick and all-encompassing, the vocals float out into your ears from behind massive percussion and mournful riffs. It’s a record I want to swim in, and linger in its warmth and undulations. It’s one of those records that like 2 seconds in to the first track, “Lines of You,” I knew I had a fucking winner. By the time I was eardrums-deep into the second track, “Dilute the Pain,” I was regretting my limited senses and 3D existence and wishing I could immerse my reality fully into Linger. Every track on this record is better than the next, and by the time I reached the final song, “A Butterfly Last Dance,” I was ready to start over again. MONDAZE are masters of atmosphere and in each track they take the listener from soft to heavy and back again seamlessly.
Linger was released on November 22, 2024, via Bronson Recordings and you can get it here. Listen to it now. MONDAZE — stay in touch and don’t let us miss any more of your releases!
A daily routine of unnatural alarms, alienating commutes, an ever-more relentless work pace, and artificially induced desires pushing us to consume things we don’t need. Monotonous meals, harmful food, and a self-imposed numbness as we sit in front of streaming platforms, losing sleep until the last possible moment. Then the alarm rings again, and the cycle repeats, with even more exhaustion and less focus.
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