Photo by Conor Shepard

“Planet Popstar” didn’t make it onto the final cut of Wishy’s buzzworthy debut album, Lucky Sevens, but it’s got the kind of energy you makes you see it from anywhere the band moves within its orbit. The Midwestern alternative-pop rock quintet have this way of emotionally thrilling the ear with vivid, electrical texturizes strewn through a shoegaze-adjacent galaxy, and on their latest listen, it’s maximized in the red to make longing from a distance just another challenge to get to where the heart wants to be. To get there, they’re strapping on their jetpacks and doubling down on fully amped and loaded energy to strewn themselves across the skyline as compressed fuzz blows any space between co-vocalist Kevin Krauter and the object of his desire out of the way. “Book a flight to the sun / ‘Cause I’d rather be burned alive,” he sings. Even at the risk of combusting into a million pieces across the cosmos, Wishy commit to that star-struck feeling.

Edited by: Alex Rodgers

Wishy’s “Planet Popstar” single is available now on Winspear.