A technicolour wash of sound, Virgin's debut album revives the sleeping shoegaze giant for a modern audience. 

In the early 90s, ‘‘shoegaze’’ was coined as a media slur for musicians of the alt-rock persuasion with more enamour for their effect pedals than their audience. A style of music too ethereal to be alt-rock and yet too alt-rock to be dream pop, the media was stumped.

They would soon learn that the beauty of shoegaze — and we say the term now without any derogatory connotation — is in its otherworldliness anchored to solid ground. It's undefinable yet we recognise shoegaze as soon as we hear it. Not merely a flash in the pan snippet in music history, shoegaze breathes new life on social media terrain owed greatly to TikTok clips set to shoegaze standards. 

Belfast’s own Virgins are champions of this second incarnation as blissed-out vocals meshed against fuzzy guitars serve as the perfect vehicle for igniting the spectrum of human emotion — something the first wavers knew all along, alas. Led into the celestial kaleidoscope by lead guitarist Michael Smyth, the dulcet vocals from Rebecca Daws are the perfect navigational tool in the abyss. The quintet is rounded by Dave Sloan on rhythm guitar, Brendy McCann on bass, and James Foy on drums.

After a serendipitous encounter with Slow Crush’s ‘‘Aurora’’, Virgins was conceived as the brainchild of Smyth. With the unprecedented success of their 2022 EP Transmit a Little Heaven, the evolution of an album was only a matter of time — an appetite for the ‘‘forgotten’’ genre was growing.

Recorded and produced by Jonny Woods of Winona Bleach, the album casts the thematic net far and wide covering love, sex, death, loss, time, accepting pain, and beauty in the world. The album title nothing hurt and everything was beautiful pays homage to the post-modern novel Slaughterhouse 5, suggesting a journey into the depths of memory.

This sentiment is echoed in its rosy-hued album cover, reminiscent of viewing the past through rose-tinted glasses. There is a potent duality coursing through this album - an innocent fragility juxtaposed with raw aggression - underscored even by the band name Virgins, a subtle nod to the Sophia Coppola cult classic The Virgin Suicides. 

The album is layered with references that explore the human condition, deliberately hand-picked by Smyth to create silence amongst the noise. One of the more expansive tracks on the record, ‘‘p a l e f i r e’’, owes its name to a poem recited in the film Blade Runner 2049 and based on the novel of the same name by Vladimir Nabokov. Who knew sci-fi, Russian poetry, and shoegaze could blend so seamlessly? Well, apparently Smyth did. Opening with an ebb and flow of shimmering distortion and lead guitar filtering in, there is a sense of urgency, as if time is running out. The track reaches a satisfying crescendo as Daw’s vocals pierce through the blanket of sound with otherworldly finesse reminiscent of Elizabeth Fraser with more pop sensibility. 

The record grapples with the transience of time which mirrors Smyth’s own journey. From unorthodox beginnings in a stuffy Belfast jazz club to the creation of Ireland’s first shoe-gaze-centered festival GazeFest, Smyth has been relentless in his pursuit of a home for his gaze-pop vision and seeking to understand ‘‘how the world fits you, not how you fit the world’’. Virgins maintain the integrity of classic shoegaze à la My Bloody Valentine and Slow Dive while infusing their sound with strong melodies and catchy hooks reminiscent of pop.

In the vein of sister-genre dream pop, the album is crafted to be perpetually in motion, mirroring the fluidity of time itself. Every chord is sustained, running into another, every word from Daws suspends in the air daring you to catch it and then it's gone. The driving drum sounds, reminiscent of Smashing Pumpkin’s Siamese Dreams era, ground the songs from drifting into the ethereal stratosphere. 

The album also boasts standout tracks such as ‘‘s l o w’’ and ‘‘s u n s p o t s’’, where the melody takes centre stage, distinguishing Virgins from becoming just another shoegaze ensemble kneeling at the altar of their forbearers. While convention might relegate vocals to a background role, Virgins defy expectations, letting Daw’s voice soar. 

With home-grown talent like Virgins at the forefront, I dare say shoegaze is back, if it ever left at all. 

nothing hurt and everything was beautiful is available on starburst vinyl on the Blowtorch Records website and streaming on Spotify.