Holy Fawn, Astronoid [inside]

Shoegaze, dream pop, and slow moving, emotionally tilted post-metal are probably the most disgustingly oversaturated niche music nerd markets. A band merging all three, shouldn’t that be totally intolerable? Surprise! This ascendant Phoenix quartet completely transcends all genre politicking, merging fuzz-pedal crush with ethereal swoon as well as any band since Deftones. Drop tuned, mystic minded tone poems that come across like pre-history’s burliest viking lost in an enchanted forest of his own unexamined psychic baggage. Opening is Boston quartet Astronoid, whose soaring hyper-rock similarly resists classification (Imagine Slowdive rewriting Coheed and Cambria songs using guitar lines borrowed from Alcest). —2859246