While nodding to a classic, DIY duo Total Wife chase new horizons for shoegaze with “Make It Last,” a standout off their recently released album, ‘come back down.’

follow our Today’s Song(s) playlist

Stream: “make it last” – Total Wife

Nashville is known for pedal steel, not pedalboards – but from beneath Music Row, Total Wife are giving shoegaze a makeover.

The ascendant duo dreamed up their new album while drifting off into a familiar headspace. And while come back down does end with a song that literally recalls My Bloody Valentine, “make it last” swirls with endless possibilities for the future.

Total Wife are the total package. come back down arrives as their first album to receive the official seal of approval from indie kingmaker Julia’s War, but Luna Kupper and Ash Richter have been handling their own business since befriending each other in high school. Per usual, LP numero five was produced in-house, though getting it off the ground really tested their resourcefulness. To make rent, Kupper sold her synth collection prior to recording, so she built these song beds out of recycled raw materials. “make it last” savors its re-processed vocals like a piece of hard candy before slipping down memory lane. “Come in Alone on the car stereo,” Richter murmurs. The effect is as strange and intimate as hearing the person next to you talk in their sleep.

come back down - total wife — come back down – total wife

Like so much of the best shoegaze, come back down was pulled from somewhere high above the clouds. During late-night mixing sessions, Kupper would fall asleep at the controls, only to wake with fresh insight. While she’s on the record for saying that the album can be traced back to “a single thought unfolding endlessly,” it’s far from repetitive. Total Wife demand our attention by paying only a passing glance to the surrounding scene, bypassing the subgenre’s faded guideposts for blips of slowcore, emo and extensive drum ‘n’ bass.

By comparison, “make it last” takes a much more conventional track. Fuzzy distortion blows out the speakers with a great big sigh of relief, like finding your way home amidst a snowstorm in the days before GPS. That is, until the chorus arrives. Lost in a melody that’s dizzy with a kaleidoscope of warm colors, it’s impossible to tell what’s sampled from a real live instrument, let alone up from down.

Heaven is a long sigh, alongside you…

When shoegaze first washed ashore during the early ’90s, its hazy footprint was quickly wiped out by Britpop’s champagne supernova. That the revival has outgrown its initial wave of popularity shocks me, though in hindsight, I can see why the resurgence with Gen Z happened when it did. After all, those blankets of reverb were a great place to hide from the pandemic. Richter wrote most of the lyrics to come back down while reflecting on how isolated she felt during that prolonged period. Sometimes, the songs find her reconnecting with childhood, but “make it last” longs for something more concrete. After frequent tours up and down the East Coast, Total Wife still love to hit the open road, where time’s passing is overtaken (however briefly) by the rush of living one quarter mile at a time.

“get in the car – I wanna drive fast.” With guitars revving at full noisy throttle, Kupper and Richter shoot like a flare across the horizon. The impression they leave behind is so blindingly bright, you’ll see it long after closing your eyes.

come back down is out now on Julia’s War.

— —