Sparkler – “Pet Hotel”

The San Diego shoegaze quartet Sparkler describe their sound as “truegaze.” After letting us sinking our heads into their debut album Glidewinder‘s earliest single, “Postal”, you’ll quickly realize that term is actually a really great way of signaling to new listeners that yeah, they sure do sound like some of the genre’s sensory-warped and reverb-drenched originators like My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive, but they’re also a band who exists in 2026 with their own swirls in their design that extends further beyond what was previously explored within that same sonic universe.

With its latest preview, “Pet Hotel”, we’re hearing even more of that in its corners’ space song atmospherics. Celestial waves of guitars softly swell through the sky, creating bluffs of dreamscapes. Would you believe this was also the first song which vocalists and guitarists Ashley “Tron” Castillo and Christopher Sennes wrote before they even conceived Sparkler as being a thing? Talk about a big bang moment in the most calming way. Also, when’s the last time you heard a shoegaze band write a song about a place where good floofs get to vibe away from their humans? Check in below…

Directed by: Diego Guardado