I’m No Longer Afraid Of Heights

Sungaze — 2026

“I’m No Longer Afraid Of Heights proves Sungaze can build a wall of sound without losing the human pulse.”

Sungaze have spent three albums crafting the kind of haze you can disappear into. On their fourth, the Cincinnati band stop running and make their most grounded and emotionally direct record to date. The album takes you somewhere else, like all great shoegaze records do. Ivory Snow and Ian Hilvert build these ten songs on the tension between memory and momentum, the way nostalgia can comfort you and quietly hold you in place at the same time. That feeling comes through as the six-piece group surrounds you with waves of guitar. You hear it right away in opening track “Another Life,” where Snow keeps reaching for a thought she will not finish, asking “is it ever, will I ever” over guitars that bloom from a quiet second into a wide-open chorus.

The band have found a good space here as they let the songs breathe before they break. The guitars still pile into thick walls, but the crescendos arrive in balance with Snow’s voice that moves from a near whisper into a full-throated near scream that raises the stakes every time. I really like how, at times, it goes deep with the listener and warns about the cost of waiting, captured best in the title track when she sings about “boneyards full of people who thought they’d make it out.” It lands hard but Sungaze do a great job that even during the heaviest moments they keep a little light in them.

“Feel Better Tomorrow” is a great song, as it admits “seven years’ll go just like that” while riding a chorus that feels like a supportive hand on the shoulder. “Another Life” opens the album with patience, letting its ambient texture stack up until the instrumental peak says what the lyrics refuse to. Several tracks, including “Rice Crispies,” feature Hilvert on vocals, and that combination of voices gives the band another compelling dynamic. The closer and title track, “I’m No Longer Afraid of Heights,” pulls childhood and adulthood into one frame, “piney walks and corner shop candy” giving way to “parking lots and office talk,” and the band sends it off with a swell that feels like a final decision being made.

Ivory Snow has a fantastic voice that makes it easy to throw out a Mazzy Star and Cocteau Twins comparison. Her voice can float above the noise without losing its warmth as Sungaze will feel familiar fast. The guitar work owes plenty to Slowdive, all that blur and bloom, while the patient mood and the way melodies hang in the air recall Beach House at their most hypnotic. What separates the band from shoegaze history is the bite underneath, a midwest emo immediacy that connects them to newer voices like Softcult and Fazerdaze, who also know how to wrap a gut punch in something gorgeous. It is dream pop record with its feet on the ground showered in the gaze!

Some records help you escape, but this one gives you direction. Sungaze have figured out how a hazy guitar band can make its point while connecting back to every listener that hits play.