Blue Zero

I’ve covered a few singles from Oakland’s Blue Zero, but as you nest in for the holidays and start to pile up the records you missed from 2024, this one should take a prominent place on the pile. The band’s part of the swelling ranks of smeared and smudged bands coming out of the Bay Area these days. Slipping in nicely between Seablite, April Magazine, and Aluminum, the band’s debut finds its footing between shoegaze and indie’s incessant bite. The band’s Chris Natividad has found himself among the ranks of Marbled Eye, Public Interest, and Aluminum, but with Blue Zero he takes the helm.

Rounded out with members of SUCKER and Blue Ocean, the band digs into the blurry side of the Creation catalog, flinging grunge’s fuzzed motor into the abyss. Colder Shade of Blue revels in the sonic tsunami that fed Ride, MBV, and Lilys. Quite a few bands in the new generation of gaze have been working to balance the pop side with the obfuscation, but Blue Zero often let the wall of sound win. With hooks snaking through the storm, Blue Zero capitalizes on heft, a hugeness that comes at the listener in waves. Along with engineer Andrew Oswald, Natividad turns his songs into foaming visions, strums and drums pushed towards the red, leaving the listener soaked in sunburn and a dizzying ache, but always ready to return for more.

Support the artist. Buy it HERE.