San Diego’s Sparkler aren’t interested in shoegaze revivalism so much as returning to its source. Where much of today’s scene drifts toward hardcore grit or grunge-laden density, the four-piece coin their own term—“truegaze”—as both a tongue-in-cheek mantra and a serious commitment to fidelity. Their sound takes its cues from the swirling psychedelia of My Bloody Valentine and Swirlies, but with an attention to texture and space that feels less like homage and more like continuation.

Their 2022 debut Big Sonic Chill introduced Sparkler as a band willing to mine shoegaze’s most lysergic edges, drawing comparisons to Alison’s Halo and All Natural Lemon & Lime Flavors while carving out their own hazy fingerprint. With their sophomore album Glidewinder (à La Carte Records), the band expand that vision, crafting songs that oscillate between jet-engine distortion and crystalline shimmer. Each track feels suspended in flux, threatening to collapse into silence or burst apart entirely.

For Sparkler, shoegaze isn’t a genre frozen in amber but a living, mutable force—raw and refined, massive yet intimate. On Glidewinder, they chase that tension to its breaking point, reaffirming their place not as revivalists but as architects of something both familiar and wholly new.