Coming in with a little shoegaze for your Thursday, how does that sound? Montreal’s Bodywash put out one of my favorite records of 2019 in Comforter, one that I’ll always associate with that year’s fall, specifically with the trips I’d make by ferry to go visit my partner, who had just moved to the city. There was one trip in particular where the sunset was framed in a large hole in the clouds on the horizon. Paired with Bodywash’s “With Heat”, with the sounds of the East River sloshing beneath my feet on the jetty, and the colder air nipping my neck: it was bliss. But enough living in the past. Bodywash are back with a new LP, I Held The Shape While I Could, out April 14 via Light Organ Records. They just dropped a new single from it, “No Repair”, and it’s the closing track. You know how I am about closers.

“No Repair” still sees the band coat their track in gauzy webs of guitar, but as opposed to their 2019 record, it seems like the vocals are further up in the mix, and more hi-fi synthesizer and a mix of physical and digital percussion is worked in as well, bringing their overall sound more into the present rather than acting as a long-lost relic of the 90s shoegaze explosion. It carries the listener through a compelling, dreamy landscape, tying the metaphorical record to a dock after a long journey. Definitely excited to catch these folks at SXSW next week after them being one of my last concerts of 2019!

I Held The Shape While I Could is out April 14 via Light Organ Records. Pre-order & listen HERE.