2025's Overlooked Dreamgaze
From bleepdrem to U2gaze
Unless you’ve been stuck in a fortnight-long hangover, you might be aware that the year 2025 has come to an end. This is a fairly normal thing, according to the calendar that a lot of us use, years tend to end around the 31st of December. About as normal as years ending are year-end lists, the best of which are of course gatekeep!’s collective top 50, Nex’s grand metal list, or the humongous personal lists by Sunny and Hugh. At the very bottom of this list of lists, you will find some strange person trying to get you to appreciate dreamy music that is so last year and too few people heard. Welcome to the official Overlooked Dreamgaze List 2025: eighteen albums of underrated bliss.
As we all have our own unique tastes in vibing tf out, each release is of a different flavour. Feel free to scroll until you hit a flavour that satisfies your buds.
Mini Trees - Slow it Down (flavour: popdrem)
Above all, this album is really cute. Mini Trees continues blending understated melodies with vibey sonic textures, making for a surprisingly layered dream pop project that gets more rewarding with each listen.
Highlight: “Close”
glittr - HARPANGEL (flavour: dreamhouse)
glittr’s debut album eastern light coloured the warmest days of last summer: the follow-up EP HARPANGEL is colouring the darkest days of this winter. The deeply soothing electronic drem house project has proven itself to be perfect for any and all weather types: it’s blissful, it’s sweet, and it makes the (inevitably short) wait for the next Ruby Haunt album all the more bearable.
Highlight: “HARPANGEL”
Moon in June - 色彩を持たないで (flavour: janglegaze)
The creators of 2023’s most adorably addictive album are back! While this new project might not quite match their debut’s unrelenting hookiness, 色彩を持たないで is an entirely lovely album. There’s plenty of sun-drenched jangly tunes to be found here, with some of the most pristine-capital-p production I have heard all year. Yay!
Highlight: “踊る魔物”
Seer Believer - Make a Wish (flavour: crunch rock)
From one of 2020’s most overlooked albums to one of 2025’s most overlooked albums: Seer Believer has returned, baby! The Gleemer-offshoot wraps its pensive indie rock in more expansive textures this time around, from several riff-focused tracks to beautifully intricate melodies underscoring lyrics that are slowly starting to display glimmers of hope.
Highlight: “Nail Your Heart Down”
mofie - When Did You Feel it Spark? (flavour: romance pop)
The very best thing about mofie’s debut album is the way it tells a seemingly ordinary story of love in a deeply moving way. Featuring flourishes of country, post hardcore and unabashed pop, When Did You Feel it Spark? is a queer love story woven together by one of the best voices in dream pop. From a table for one to a table for two, this record is heartwarming.
Highlight: “Melt”
Glimmer - Get Weak (flavour: tradgaze)
Do you like shoegaze that sounds like shoegaze performed by a band with a name that sounds more shoegaze than the very shoegaze-sounding shoegaze they create? Yeah, me too.
Highlight: “When Everything Was Spring”
Swim School - Swim School (flavour: U2gaze)
Sure, sure, you hate U2. The Edge is pretty good though, right? That boy knows how to edge a good riff. Swim School have some delightfully Edge-y riffs to entangle in their dreamy songs, and damn, I guess I still have found what I’m looking for.
Highlight: “Green Eyes (Want it All)”
Daydream Twins - Solstice for Embodiment (Flavour: psychgaze)
The Daydream Twins formula is straightforward but entirely delightful: space out excellent dream pop cuts with psychedelic elements and spice it up with the occasional banger. The duo’s second full length is a much more refined project than 2022’s self titled debut as it cuts out the fluff and gets to a core of very good songs.
Highlight: “Take You Down”
吴雪颖 - 醒不来的梦 (flavour: dissociationgaze)
After a five year break, my favourite dream pop entity from China has returned! I still know absolutely nothing about 吴雪颖 except for the fact that they put out another lovely album that flew under, over, or straight through just about everyone’s radar. 醒不来的梦 crafts a rather pleasant dissonant atmosphere by blending field recordings that fall somewhere on the eerie-to-pleasant spectrum with angelic post-rock twinkles and heavenly vocals. It’s quite lovely. Good luck finding this in your library if you don’t speak Chinese.
Highlight: “梦的碎”
Garage Sale - Any Day Now (flavour: kiwidrem)
There’s something happening in New Zealand based dream pop that I can’t quite articulate. Garage Sale have “it”, Armlock have “it”, and I’m sure other bands have “it” too (yes, this is a thinly veiled “hmm these two bands have a similar thing going on and I want to create a thesis out of that”-thesis, shut up). This “it” can best be described as understated, acoustic guitar-heavy drem with vocals that are delightfully low in the mix yet more distinguishable than your average gaze. Who knows what I’m on about, this album rules and you should check it out.
Highlight: “Can’t You See”
Prima Queen - The Prize (flavour: lattegaze)
“The Prize” may start off with a dramatic slow-burn, but at its core it’s a really damn fun album. Once the highly addictive title track kicks in, the record’s true colours show: this is a quirky and ridiculously pleasant album full of heartbreak. There’s some surprisingly intricate textures to be found here, but ultimately this is a seaside/sunny hike/early morning cocktail companion. Vibe out.
Highlight: “The Prize”
Maddie Jay - I Can Change Your Mind (flavour: bleepdrem)
While Maddie Jay’s first album dropped at the very start of the year, its whispery goodness has stayed with me through all seasons. It’s a dimly lit trippy affair filled with abstract stretches that bleed into perfect indie pop choruses. Addictive and blissed out at once, it’s very easy to make up your mind about I Can Change Your Mind amirite.
Highlight: “Name Your Price”
EGOISM - And Go Nowhere (flavour: dreambeach)
Sure, EGOISM are kind of all over the place, but most places they go are quite lovely. The main thing keeping this album together are the wonderfully carefree beach pop vibes, whether they are underscoring the best songs The 1975 never wrote (“Getting Older”, “Addison Road”) or the full sugar dream pop of cuts like “Sydney” and “If I Was a Girl”. Not every excursion is a success, but there’s enough catchy tunes here to keep things asurf.
Highlight: “Addison Road”
9Million - 9Million (flavour: hellyeahgaze)
I’ve mostly been describing 9Million as “fucking sick” to my friends, primarily because… they are. The band has approximately 9 million members, their songs are either one or six minutes long, feature dope riffs, and can switch from dad rock mode to nugaze mode in an instant. I dare you to find me a more unapologetically cool shoegaze song than the long ass closer “Creation”.
Highlight: “Creation”
100%WET - 100%WET (flavour: drum’n’gaze)
One of the greatest movements in post nugaze, drum’ngaze (or dream’n’bass), has another strong participant in 100%WET’s self titled record. If those genre descriptors mean nothing to you, just imagine some frantic drum patterns layered with blissful reverb-heavy jams. It’s sweet.
Highlight: “Ether”
NGHTCRWLR - OZ (flavour: LOUDDREM)
Okay, sure, we’re really reaching for dreamgaze here, but whatever: NGHTCRWLR is the other other (other) project by the mastermind behind King Woman and Miserable (and Sugar High), and it is abrasively spacey or spacily abrasive. OZ is slightly less, well, creepy than its predecessor, but every bit as in-your-face while keeping the vocals nice and distorted. See? Gaze = reverb on the vox fr.
Highlight: “Infrared”
Joanne Robertson - Blurr (flavour: post dream)
Blurrr feels like a half-remembered dream. While the mostly improvised ambient slowcore feels as soothing as it is abstract, it remains intriguing throughout as Joanne Robertson weaves together understated patterns into new, barely distinguishable sonic shapes.
Highlight: “Why Me”
Pale Blue Eyes - New Place (flavour: spacedrem)
If you’re not listening to Pale Blue Eyes by now, shame on you.
Highlight: “The Dreamer”
Thank you.