I’ll be the first to admit, I’m always hesitant to take music TikTok viral sensations seriously, so when I first heard San Francisco’s Wisp last year, I took it with a grain of salt. The self-proclaimed “Whirr Whore For Life” knows her nu gaze power well, wearing her shoegaze influences (Cocteau Twins, Slowdive, and of course, Whirr) on a thin sleeve on the debut album, If Not Winter.
This debut is much more produced and polished than her first EP, Pandora, which makes sense due to the fact that Lu enlisted the help of over seven different producers. The guitars feel like a heavy and opaque blanket as Natalie Lu (the 21-year-old behind Wisp) whispers (or wispers…) from a distance, while the drums are absolutely pounded into remission on a track like “Save me now.” Does this debut LP compare to the legendary shoegaze bands Wisp references? For me, it really depends on my mood, but if anything, Wisp has got the younger generation into discovering the older shoegaze bands of yore, so that’s something.
If Not Winter is the bedroom sound of being extremely online and extremely alone, of 3 AM feelings compressed into WAV files and shared with strangers who somehow understand. You have to adore the sci-fi feeling of a track like “Guide Light,” with its kind of kitschy synth line that brings to mind a crashing UFO during a snowstorm. The guitar bends are also quite delicious. The title track brings more of a Clairo vibe than I was expecting, but then it becomes classic heavy atmospheric Wisp during the chorus, led by an acoustic guitar. This acoustic element appears again on the track “Get back to me,” and honestly I could do with more of it for variety.
Because where the album occasionally falters is in its sameness—the hushed vocals and minimal arrangements can blur together over the runtime. I wasn’t sure if I was listening to the same song from the choruses of “Mesmerized” to “Breathe onto me.” You could argue that this is just the blurry vibe of shoegaze, but to me, the “best” shoegaze albums have noticeable dynamic shifts. Though it’s a small critique to be sure and i can’t wait to see what Wisp does next.
