Let the record show that crushed did it first. In 2023, Shawn Durkan, frontman of psychedelic noise-gazers Weekend, linked up with Bre Morell, frontwoman of the dream-swept Austin rockers Temple of Angels, across wireless lines. The result of their collaboration was the duo’s first release, extra life — an EP so perfect in the way it reinvented their existing sonic exteriors against a forward-thinking trendscape of ’90s trip-hop and that era’s FM alternative-pop dial just a few steps ahead of the loose-fit grunge nostalgia which Gen-Z would soon re-usher in, it almost made you wonder if they’d already arrived fully formed with nothing further needed to prove.

crushed’s template has become more commonplace in today’s scene. For the better, Morell’s former Temple of Angels bandmate Rob Glynn has crafted a darker, DMT-dripped take on a similar vibe with his new band Nuclear Daisies while the hyper-maximalist bursts of the Kansas City duo forever ☆ are pushing it to new limits. For the worse, you get a devolution of very anonymous-sounding Spotify background tracks by some artists who probably bought a few milli followers on the algorithm’s discovery section.

crushed pay no mind to either side of this outside static on their debut full-length, no scope. They instead focus on refining the atmospheres of their dreamy electronic guitar-pop craft, crystallizing a polarity of lovelorn longing and timeline glitch bliss in the process. If extra life was about the immediate endorphin rush for the moment on standouts like “waterlily” and “milksugar”, then no scope gives the duo’s chemistry space to settle in before hitting your senses with just as much of a fix, with its gamer culture-homaging titles “exo”, “cwtch” and “oneshot” being amongst the year’s most flawlessly executed amalgamations of retro-modern music matter softly radiating from the underground, from the cosmos out.

The tiny, perfectionist details stardusted along the way level up no scope with more life than where they first started their journey together. “starburn” and “heartcontainer” are slowburning ballads tailor made for Morell’s deeply emo singer-songwriter exhales and a vocal gravitational force. On the Durkan-led “meghan” and “weaponx”, it’s the stranger things in alien transmissions synthesizing in from lightyears away or that crisp collision of digital and electric layers ecstatically crackling around him. Together, their energy pulls your head into galaxy brain mode, then rips you right back down to Earth a dozen times over. That they do so with such an effortless cool that makes it all the more easier to hit their mark.

Highlights: “starburn”, “oneshot”, “meghan”

crushed’s no scope is available on Ghostly International.

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