The shoegaze revival needs a brainwash, and Reality IX is that acidic solution. It should be noted that the band Belong never directly ascribed their sound fully to that scene. In the early Aughts, they were merely tangents to it — circulating feedback through that era’s appropriation of its aesthetics where artists were more keen on reshaping its form through experimental electronic and droning noise textures rather than peeling away at My Blood Valentine and Slowdive’s exponential layers. Today’s Gen-Z current can’t hold their melted wax up to the forward-progression of those years.

For those in need of a reminder of those creative ambitions alongside a much needing cleansing of our modern palette, the New Orleans duo of Michael Jones and Turk Dietrich’s third full-length and first new album in 13 years breaks away in its own soundwave, even if their avenue is that of a surge of motorik churns made melodious that could easily double as a white noise machine soundtrack to escape the sounds of the outside world from nighttime into dawn. Guitars are drenched in a hard-grained blanket of static, drum patterns are set to syncopate in repetitive motions, and the vague silhouette of human voices and physical shapes are filled in with monochromatic colors that swirl and diffuse depending on what amperage and velocity Belong press into.

Something feels telling of a different plane of existing through its fog of dense electricity. You don’t need to know the descript context of each track’s emotional depths to be able to feel it. With Reality IX, Belong absorb you into their sound before sonically bleaching your conscious clean.

Highlights: “Realistic (I’m Still Waiting)”, “Bleach”, “AM/PM”

Belong’s Realistic IX will be released is available now on kranky.

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