Austin’s Nuclear Daisies first materialized in 2022 with a self-titled debut album that strove for a dancier take on the whirring dream-pop its members created in their other bands, including Ringo Deathstarr and Temple of Angels. Rather than approaching shoegaze as a mixer with post-hardcore or metal, as many of their contemporaries were doing, the project returns the genre to its ’90s heyday by fusing it with elements of that era’s alternative dance music, most prominently the psychedelic baggy scene.
With that record’s follow-up, First Taste of Heaven, the trio pushes deeper into the trance-like aesthetic they crafted three years ago. Set to be released this Friday via Portrayal of Guilt Records, the harsh sounds of the label’s namesake can hardly be heard in the record’s slate of early singles, which each create such blissful sounds with their walls of noise that the wailing guitars that undergird their soundbeds barely register. The LP’s final pre-release single “Toad” is no exception, with the industrial fusion bringing the recent playful experiments of No Joy to mind with the blend of Alex Gehring’s vocals deep in the psych-shoegaze mix.
Arriving with the track is an appropriately trippy music video that essentially combines all of the song’s elements: dancing, nearly panic-inducing psychedelia, toads. Check it out below, and pre-order the record here.
