The pressures an artist or band faces when releasing a debut album have been discussed in countless articles. Still, when it comes to young shoegaze hopefuls Ringing and their Julia’s War Recordings-released LP Another Cycle in the Cosmic Wash, there are even more layers of stress for the band to deal with. What started as a noisy solo project built on experimenting with the limits of the middle ground between alt-rock and shoegaze has blossomed into a youthful, promising trio. Although for Colton Walker, Marcos Rocha, and Josh Matthews, the mission has stayed the same since Ringing uploaded their first songs to Bandcamp in 2020: leave their mark on what is slowly becoming a contemporary shoegaze revival.
This is not only Ringing’s debut album, but it is also their first major release for the exhilarating Julia’s War, home to some of the finest shoegaze and experimental rock the scene has to offer, their first full album since forming as a trio, and their first project since 2023’s Is The Light Out Where You Are? EP. Another Cycle in the Cosmic Wash is more than a proper debut for this band; it is their initial introduction to the world, and those added strains were not lost on this trio. Ringing poured every ounce of fearlessness and prowess into these ten songs, proving to have a thirst for new terrain and the innate talents to build it for themselves. If their 2023 EP was the moment Ringing proved to have mastered shoegaze tropes, Another Cycle in the Cosmic Wash is when this trio makes these tropes their own. The band’s proper studio debut finds them more self-assured, confident, and poetic, diving headfirst into a revived sound that balances individuality with tradition.
Although there are very few conventions at play throughout Another Cycle in the Cosmic Wash. While there are nods to Ringing’s chaotic shoegaze roots, like on the longing-tinted, distorted bliss of “want2want2” or the wall-of-sound that is the far-too-short “familiar,” this is not an album by a band trying to break into an established scene; they’re trying to remold it. You can hear their sonic maturity shine on highlights like the moving indie rock come-down jam “incandescent,” and the ethereal slow-burn of “straylight bleed,” both of which also showcase the vivid imagery that flows throughout the songwriting on Another Cycle in the Cosmic Wash.
A surface-level listen of Ringing’s debut would showcase a band exercising their range of musicianship, resulting in a disjointed tracklist, but this is far from an album that can be fully digested in one sitting. Each listen reveals a new emotion, a refreshing color, another layer to this band’s fresh lease on creativity. There is a bold, adventurous nature to these ten songs that are tied together through Ringing’s exploration of themselves and their sonic ambitions as a band. When these two worlds collide, the true magic of Another Cycle in the Cosmic Wash is revealed. The heartfelt “moria” is the band’s take on a modern love ballad filtered through grunge-like textures, while the album closer, “delusion lake,” is a ripping, warping ode to growth.
Shoegaze is slowly becoming one of the more crowded genres in contemporary music, with new albums from fresh bands becoming more frequent as time goes on. On their studio debut, Ringing successfully separated themselves from their genre peers and many rock acts across all subgenres, with a valiant, vulnerable LP that is both experimental and accessible. Another Cycle in the Cosmic Wash is a terrific introduction to a band that is just getting started, ten tracks filled with risks that yield both a rewarding listen for the listener and a sonic achievement for Ringing.
