LOTTO - They Are Gutting a Body of Water

The modern U.S. shoegaze scene has been dissected countless times, but if you ask its most devoted fans to name the scene’s most ambitious act, one name inevitably surfaces: They Are Gutting a Body of Water. The Mic's Josh Holmes reports on the latest shoegaze spotlight contender.

Past full-length projects such as Destiny XL and Lucky Styles have earned the Philadelphia outfit a dedicated underground following, while supporting sets for dream pop and shoegaze figureheads like julie and Nottingham’s Panchiko have cemented their reputation as one of the genre’s most exciting contemporary forces.

With their new album LOTTO, TAGABOW take a noticeable turn. The record may maintain the bite-sized, sub–half-hour runtime of its predecessors, but it trims away much of the experimental and psychedelic interludes that once punctuated their noise-pop heaviness.

“LOTTO is lean, cohesive, and relentless, offering little respite among some of the loudest, most visceral tracks in modern shoegaze.”

Normally, I’d be disappointed to see a band move away from sonic risk-taking — but here, the refinement works wonders. LOTTO is lean, cohesive, and relentless, offering little respite among some of the loudest, most visceral tracks in modern shoegaze.

From the second track, sour diesel, the band’s song-writing chops come out swinging. Its sheer wall of noise evokes first-wave U.S. shoegazers like Medicine, while the clear pop sensibility nods to acts such as Feeble Little Horse — unsurprising, given both bands’ connection to Julia’s War Recordings, the underground label founded by TAGABOW frontman Douglas Dulgarian.

Despite these pop undercurrents, the band never abandon their signature sonic assault. The clean, chorus-drenched verses of trainers collapse into exquisite distortion, crafting what’s sure to be a mesmerizing live experience — one that U.K. audiences can anticipate when TAGABOW embark on their tour this coming February.

A similar formula shines on rl stine, which delivers another eruption of noise (sadly without any lyrical nods to Goosebumps).

It’s not all chaos, though. violence iii, the third entry in a trilogy of upbeat slacker-rock tracks that began on Destiny XL, opens with clean, chiming guitars before the inevitable wave of fuzz takes over — and it’s glorious. Meanwhile, american food stands out as one of the band’s rare forays into restraint. Trading their signature noise for layered spoken-word voice memos, a lo-fi drum loop, and delicate fingerpicked guitar, the track broadens TAGABOW’s sonic palette in unexpectedly moving ways.

“These quieter moments underscore LOTTO’s greatest strength: balance. The band now use their trademark distortion not as a crutch, but as a tool — deploying it strategically to heighten impact.”

These quieter moments underscore LOTTO’s greatest strength: balance. The band now use their trademark distortion not as a crutch, but as a tool — deploying it strategically to heighten impact. It’s this moderation that elevates LOTTO above the band’s past releases.

Lyrically, LOTTO distinguishes itself not just from TAGABOW’s earlier work, but from many of their peers. Dulgarian describes the album as an “attempt to surface” in “a world of perpetually increasing artifice,” and that tension is palpable from the opening track, the chase. Its spoken-word segment plays like a hyper-synthetic ode to love from a relapsing addict — “a substance that will make me sob pathetic to my girlfriend,” he confesses, before concluding that “true love is a long and enduring thing.” It’s a grim, poetic twist on the well-worn trope of love-as-drug, cloaked in darkness and despair.

Across the album, imagery of hopelessness and the decaying American dream recurs. Dulgarian’s lyrics often feel smothered beneath suffocating distortion — a sonic embodiment of the anxiety they describe.

“It’s a record that feels complete — not in length, but in intent — and one that will almost certainly shake the U.S. shoegaze underground to its core.”

LOTTO finds They Are Gutting a Body of Water pushing beyond the boundaries of their noise-heavy identity. The band’s newfound restraint, lyrical nuance, and sharper song-writing mark a clear evolution. While their characteristically short runtimes may still frustrate some listeners craving more expansiveness, LOTTO uses its 28 minutes with surgical precision. It’s a record that feels complete — not in length, but in intent — and one that will almost certainly shake the U.S. shoegaze underground to its core.

by Josh Holmes

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edited by Max Durno

all photos courtesy of They Are Gutting a Body of Water