From the first moment of ‘hurtling towards,’ Vienna, Virginia’s bellweather announce themselves with a kind of glacial momentum that feels both urgent and unmoored, as if caught between accelerating toward something unknowable and lingering in the echoes of what’s already passed. It becomes evident that bellweather have crafted an EP that doesn’t just flirt with the textures of shoegaze, it embraces them with both hands, letting distortion and melody wrestle in a way that feels raw, vital, and deeply emotional. With “LONER-L12,” cascading guitars and shimmering washes of sound swirl around the vocals like dust caught in headlights, forging an atmosphere that’s simultaneously intimate and overwhelming. It feels like staring out a train window at a world too bright to comprehend, yet too compelling to look away from; a sonic embodiment of that collision of energy and promise the title implies.
The mood shifts but never truly settles as “feverfew” unfolds its more introspective petals. Where the opener felt thrust forward, this second track draws the listener inward, exploring fragility beneath the haze. Its textures flirt with clarity, voices and instruments brushing against each other with a kind of luminous pull, conjuring a sense of yearning that lingers long after the notes fade. Here, bellweather’s gift for building ambience without succumbing to mere murkiness becomes most evident: each wave of sound feels deliberate, a thread in a tapestry that refuses to sit still.
By the time the band launches into “bag of indigo,” the atmosphere ripples with a restless energy that propels the EP forward without sacrificing its dreamlike quality. This piece feels like a musical exhale, riffs swelling and receding with the ebb of emotion, inviting you to dive deeper into the sonic current rather than cling to the shore. It blurs the lines between introspection and release, urging the listener to surrender to the wave instead of resisting its pull.
Then comes “space age love song,” a sly yet affectionate reimagining of the A Flock of Seagulls classic that serves as both a palate cleanser and a reaffirmation of bellweather’s aesthetic. Underneath its recognizable melody lies the band’s signature approach: walls of reverberant guitar, vocals that trace patterns through the mist, and a beat that feels like footsteps echoing down an endless corridor. In this context, the cover becomes less a reproduction and more a reinterpretation, a refracted prism that casts familiar light into strange, compelling patterns.
By the time the EP reaches its conclusion, there’s a sense that you’ve been on a brief but transformative journey. hurtling towards doesn’t merely replicate the classic shoegaze ethos of haze, pulse, and introspection, it channels it with conviction, texture, and a gleeful embrace of noise. Taken together, these four tracks form more than an EP; they are a cohesive statement of intent. ‘hurtling towards’ captures bellweather at a moment of exploration and expansion, unafraid to let harmonies drift into distortion or to let quiet moments carry as much weight as the louder ones.
For listeners who crave music that feels vivid, unfiltered, and emotionally unrestrained, this release is more than just a collection of songs; it’s a cathartic rush, a reminder of how powerful sound can be when it hits you not just in the ears, but beneath the skin. It’s music that insists on being felt as much as heard, an invitation to lose yourself in its shimmering depths and emerge with a sense of having traveled somewhere vast and uncharted.
Learn more by visiting: Bandcamp | Instagram | Spotify
