motel void

SILK – SLIDE AWAY

Having spent 2025 releasing three highly successful singles and touring Ireland, including festival appearances at GazeFest alongside Whitelands and Sweet Sweet Noise, Silk returned earlier this year with the excellent single Clementine. That was followed by the EP Auralux, which also features Slide Away.

What can be said about this track? Simply put, it’s shoegaze in its purest form – and executed brilliantly. It’s massive, atmospheric, and full of ideas, with gorgeous hypnotic vocals floating above towering walls of guitar. One of my favourite moments comes near the end, when the song briefly pulls back and seems to drift into open water before crashing back in with another wave of glorious distortion. A fantastic track.

DOG SILENT – LOVERLY

Loverly by Dog Silent offers a similarly hypnotic, Twin Peaks-esque atmosphere. The drums sound fantastic, the effects are used with real imagination, and when the bass enters around the 0:40 mark, everything suddenly locks into place.

Unlike many bands operating in this space, Dog Silent don’t bury the vocals beneath layers of reverb and guitars. Instead, the female vocal remains surprisingly present in the mix, and the song benefits enormously from it. There’s an ethereal quality to the performance that perfectly complements the dreamy instrumentation, while the melodies are far more immediate and memorable than the genre often allows itself to be. It’s a refreshing approach and one that works beautifully.

LUCY FROST – REAL

Boston native Lucy Frost developed an interest in songwriting and composition at an early age. Influenced by the introspective writing of Elliott Smith, Jeff Buckley, and Bob Dylan, alongside contemporary artists such as Billie Eilish and Lola Young, she has developed a style that feels both personal and timeless.

Now based in Los Angeles, Frost returns with Real, a single that brings to mind a fascinating midpoint between Elliott Smith, Phoebe Bridgers, and Haley Heynderickx. It’s catchy and immediately appealing, yet beneath the surface there’s something stranger at work – a subtle sense of unease and mystery that gives the song its emotional depth.

What I love most is how accessible it is without ever becoming simplistic or superficial. Real invites you in with its melodies but rewards you with far more than a casual listen. That’s exactly the kind of songwriting I keep coming back to.