zzzahara turns Distant Lands into sunny gloom with a good guitar tan

zzzahara’s Distant Lands receives 23 June review attention, and the premise is immediately appealing: sunny melodies wrapped around grief, rejection and love, with lo-fi shoegaze acting as both blanket and bruise. The Los Angeles guitarist and songwriter has always had a gift for making guitars feel emotionally weathered without losing their warmth, and Distant Lands sounds like another step into that light-shadow balance. Shoegaze can sometimes blur feeling into beautiful fog, but zzzahara’s strength is likely in keeping the human outline visible. The sadness has shape. The melodies still want to walk outside. The title suggests distance, but not emptiness; these are lands you can see from across emotional water, bright enough to hurt and gloomy enough to comfort. It is a good formula for anyone who likes their indie rock sunlit but not innocent.

Source: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/zzzahara-distant-lands/