Photo by Samuel David Katz

Sparkler refer to their style of sound on their Bandcamp page as “truegaze” and it’s not something you can really debate after hearing a track like “Postal”. Akin to their labelmates in Welcome Strawberry with their outstanding effort, desperate flower, and Maria Somerville’s breakthrough Luster, the San Diego quartet led by vocalists and guitarists Ashley “Tron” Castillo and Christopher Sennes alongside bassist Amelia Sarkisian and drummer Ian Marshall are an experience of shoegaze purity devoid of any of the tangent macho heaviness or genre-ambiguous experimentation that’s been swelling up the scene lately.

As the first preview from the band’s forthcoming second studio album, Glidewinder, the My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive reference points are clearly there in the synesthesia produced from layers of cosmic tremolo and the hushed pop apparitions of Castillo and Sennes, though the listen also has this beautiful way of revisiting past energy fields with an eagerness to show the modern world that a personal touch in refinement and experimenting with the view delivers it with a desire of newness that transcends all next wave trends.

Directed by: Diego Guardado

Sparkler’s Glidewinder will be released April 10th on à La Carte Records.