Blaire’s Punk & Shoegaze Pathos Is Crushing & Central On ‘Smiling’

Shoegaze isn’t a for everyone. It’s a smothering and, often times, intense genre of music that found a niche very quickly. Despite its cult following, it’s the musical innovators who propel the genre to wider audiences, incorporating elements of punk and garage, Blaire, from the Gold Coast, do this to a tee. The group’s latest—the second in a trilogy of singles in 2018—titled Smiling is a forward-thinking push into sonic oblivion.

Smiling follows the gargantuan and highly polished Youth from earlier in the year. It was Blaire’s introduction into the limelight—spurring a primal shift in angsty, loud guitar tones. Youth seemed too large on paper but, on delivery, it flirted with overbearing sonics and digestible lyrics dealing with the mundanity of modern life.

Smiling, on the other hand, is a forearm’s extension of what Blaire initiated on their previous single. The track takes takes the pathos of punk and the sonic texture of shoegaze and makes them abundant and central. The wall of noise has expanded—ripping into a surge of fuzzy blasts and an uncontrollable chorus. Blaire have offered two extraordinary singles and we can’t wait to hear how the break more boundaries on the next.

Stream Smiling below.