By: Kayleigh Drake 

At this point, it should be absolutely no secret that I’m a shoegaze fan. (Please see exhibits A, B, C and D.) So, when I hear about a brand-new shoegaze album being released, I’m drawn to it like a moth to a flame. 

Enter Glidewinder, the second full-length album from San Diego’s self-billed “truegaze” band Sparkler. It just dropped on Friday, April 10, and when I say it has been hitting EVERY. SINGLE. SPOT for me… that is no exaggeration. 

This album is so good. It’s exactly what I’m looking for when it comes to shoegaze. (And when it comes to music in general, really.) Dreamy, droney, spacey, glidey, melodic, drenched in wall-of-sound guitar effects, and most of all — best when played LOUD. This is the kind of record I can get lost in, absorbed in. The kind of songs I want to inject straight into my veins. 

If I’m being completely honest, this record is the closest thing to My Bloody Valentine that I’ve heard in quite some time. (And if you’ve been following us over here at Substrate for a while, then you know how hard we ride for MBV.) Basically, if you are a fan of Loveless, or really if you like shoegaze at all in general, you’re going to enjoy this album. 

From the very first notes, the dreamy vibes start flowing, and they don’t stop. Pretty much throughout the entirety of the album, apropos of the “Glidewinder” name, there’s glide guitars galore. (Aka that thing Kevin Shields does with the tremolo bar that makes the chords bend and soar while you strum them.) And one thing about me: I LOVE a glide guitar moment. It’s my favorite guitar effect, actually. It makes me feel like I’m flying in an airplane looking out over a dense blanket of clouds after I’ve had a couple glasses of wine and a bong rip (but like, in a really good way). In fact, every time I’m in a window seat on a plane, I like to listen to music that sounds exactly like this. 

Opening track “Slowerratic” is mostly instrumental, save for some floaty “oooh” vocalizations lilting throughout. But the bendy, glidey dreaminess is all there. 

Next up, “Methodone Jesus” kind of reminds me of if My Bloody Valentine were to cover “Evergreen” by Brian Jonestown Massacre. (Which I’m sure has nothing to do with the fact that the aforementioned BJM song is from an album called Methodrone lol.) This song has actual lyrics, as do the majority of the remaining ones, although I can’t really decipher what they are. But that’s kind of the beauty of shoegaze. The words aren’t important. It’s the ~vibes~.

“Last Left” comes next, and it might just be my favorite song on the album. (Although due to the fact that every song is great, it’s pretty hard to pick a fave.) But this song — especially the chorus — is a 1-2-3 repeater for me. I listened to it over and over the other day while I was going for a walk at the Botanical Gardens, and it was perfection. I couldn’t stop listening to it, and I still can’t. Nor do I want to. Immerse me in this song. Bathe me in this song. Waterboard me with this song. 

“Pet Hotel,” is one of the album’s singles, and while it’s just as shoegazey as the rest of it, I almost sense some mild Zero 7 vibes going on in there. “Such Is” sounds similar to my previously mentioned fave “Last Left” (it’s even in the same key!). “Postal” is another one of the singles, and it closes with a coda of looped samples that’s very “To Here Knows When” coded. 

“Untitled 2” is five minutes of dreaminess that begs the question: Where’s the first Untitled? And is the 2 a sequel, or just a second title-less track? We may never know. But one thing I do know is that “Come Today,” the penultimate track, is another one of my faves (and the last of the singles). It comes in HOT with the bendy tremolo glides from the very first note, pairing them with crashing drums and soft, feather-light vox. I’m pretty sure I listened to this one multiple times in a row the first time I heard it, too. 

Finally, closing track “Pruning” bookends the album with another instrumental moment, starting with floaty, fluttering strums soaked in delay and continuing with lilting chord progressions that lean a little more Slowdive than MBV. 

My only “critique” with this album (if you can call it that) is that it’s a little one-note. Most of the songs are at a similar tempo, in similar keys and with similar instrumentation. But frankly, that doesn’t bother me in the slightest. Because when the “one note” in question is this fucking good, I’ll listen to it all day. And I have. Repeatedly. 

Needless to say, this album is for sure going on my AOTY list for 2026. We’re only a few months in, but I’m calling it. And while the American airline industry is kinda FUBAR rn, I’m looking forward to booking my next flight to Wherever-ville so I can snag a window seat and listen to this record on repeat the whole time. My body needs it. 

You can listen to “Glidewinder” on Bandcamp right here! (And I would say you can order it on vinyl from said Bandcamp, but it’s already sold out. Which is a testament to how good this record is.)