Wishy's Latest Album Triple Seven is Shoegaze With a Smile

Wishy is the band I didn't know I wished for until I stumbled upon their Audiotree live session on YouTube. Now, with Triple Seven, I’m only wishing for more. I’m a real sucker for any band that taps into my fixation for shoegaze and jangle pop and they did just that with their sentimental guitar hooks and spellbinding melodies.

Wishy’s latest album arrives at a time when the shoegaze revival is catching wind, but the Indianapolis band manages to inject fun into a genre that is often filled with melancholic gloominess, making it timeless and refreshing, though it admittedly does not reinvent the wheel. In fact, its shoegaze influences didn’t struck me initially with it’s heavy reminiscence pop melodies.

Yet, Kevin Krauter and Nina Pitchkites who have known each other since high school, have birthed an under the radar album that evokes a sonic sensibility rooted in '90s shoegaze, midwest emo and 2000s pop, that can remind you of anyone from My Bloody Valentine, Ride or Pains of Being Pure at Heart (you get the drift), with a distinct millennial cool that anyone in the 2020s can bliss out to.

To be honest, the fact that Wishy is Krauter's new project piqued my interest. Well known for both his solo work and his involvement with the now-defunct band Hoops, and having followed his music for a while, Wishy feels like a delightful detour he took where he gets to explore a sound he has been meaning to get out for ages — and I'm all for it. On this album, he belts out verses like he was ready for this, as opposed his solo album Full Hands and Changes, where his vocals were gentler and faded out (both of which are albums I adore).

In the opener of the Triple Seven, “Sick Sweet”, Krauter unleashes his alt rock side with a song that is unmistakably influenced by My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless. Seemingly about unrequited love, this song delivers a lyrical gut-punch wrapped in lush instrumentation with the catchiest verse, "I've got a sick sweet dream and it's tearing me apart inside, dealing a guilty plea to my loneliest heart's desire," capturing the tension between longing and self-inflicted heartache.

On tracks like "Game" and "Persuasion," which explore themes of the pains and confusion of unreciprocated love that glows with the dreamy harmonies of Pitchkites, she mellows out the album with a fine balance, preparing for the nostalgia to hit hard. As I listen on, Krauter and Pitchkites occasionally evoke the sensibilities of Kevin Shields and Bilinda Butcher, though admittedly, this quality isn't unique to Wishy, as a few other shoegaze bands share this. In contrast to their predecessors, Krauter and Pitchkites’ vocals are not buried under layers of distortion. Instead, there's a palpable sense of lightness and colorfulness, designed to burrow into your brain from how catchy it is, because this band knows how to write melody after melody.

This is undoubtedly an album that has a great appreciation for the pop rock structure and the male and female vocals that generate swirly soundscapes that sound as right at home on the soundtrack of an A24 indie darling as they would if you were jumping into a pool on a sunny day. At the heart of the record, I enjoy the fun put into shoegaze, as opposed to the doom and gloom that may feel like a dark cloud over your head if you listen to it too often.

Ultimately, as a fan, witnessing an artist I've been following take creative turns is exciting — it’s like getting a glimpse inside their music-obsessed minds and in return, you are gifted new music. I wouldn’t ask for more than Triple Seven — a cheeky ode to striking the jackpot with "777".