Hailing from Battle Creek, Michigan—yeah, the cereal city—comes a self-titled ripper that refuses to play nice with your typical shoegaze expectations.
Fine Red Mist isn’t here to lull you to sleep with whispery vocals drowning in so much reverb you can’t tell where the song ends and the hangover begins. Nahhh. These guys took the dreamy DNA of Cocteau Twins, My Bloody Valentine, and Slowdive, then kicked the door down with a Slayer-sized boot. The result is five tracks that hit like a train wrapped in velvet.
This isn’t some bedroom project thrown together by kids who just learned what a delay pedal does. We’re talking seasoned veterans who’ve been grinding in the Battle Creek scene for years. Jeff Clements handles the vocal duties with a grip that doesn’t let go—none of that buried-in-the-mix nonsense here. Joby Purucker and Dan Kavalhuna trade off on guitars, and holy hell do they know when to bring the noise and when to pull back. Terry Modert holds down the low end on bass, and Travis Marshall is the man behind the kit. (Shout out to Jimmy Jones, who tracked the drums on the recording—solid work, man.)
What makes this lineup actually interesting? These dudes played together in different configurations across various projects over the years. Nothing clicked until now. Everybody finally found their slot, and you can hear it. That’s the kind of chemistry you can’t fake.
Joby Purucker tracked everything at Lake Effect Studios in Battle Creek, and he also handled the album art and layout. So yeah, this is a total DIY operation with zero label meddling. And thank God for that.
The EP opens with “Half Life,” and it doesn’t waste your time. Fuzzy guitars that crawl forward like they’re dragging something heavy behind them. The rhythm section locks in tight—not flashy, just meat-and-potatoes solid. Then “Note To: Former Self” keeps the momentum rolling before “The Fourth Wall” raises the intensity into the red. Two minutes and thirty-seven seconds of pure grind.
But here’s where these guys separate themselves from the pack. “Hashish Bros.” is the centrepiece—five minutes of showing exactly what they mean when they talk about balancing heaviness with breathing room. The dense parts crush. The lighter moments actually let the melody land. Most bands in this genre forget that loud isn’t the same as heavy. Fine Red Mist gets it.
Then “Diablo” closes things out with a darker, slower burn. The pace drops. The fog clears just enough to feel uncomfortable. And that’s the point.
Look, 2024 had a lot of records. Fine Red Mist went ahead and called theirs the best of the year. That’s either delusional or confident as hell. After spinning this thing multiple times, I’m leaning toward confident.
What makes this stand out isn’t rocket science—it’s the vocals. While every other shoegaze act buries their singer under seventeen layers of wash, Clements is right there in your face. You hear the words. You feel the delivery. And underneath all that, the band brings a heavier, denser sound that knows exactly when to bulldoze you and when to let you breathe.
They pressed up CDs alongside the digital release because physical media still matters to people who actually care about music. And they’ve got shows coming up—The Olympus Theater in Detroit on August 8th, 2026, for example. If they bring half the energy live that they captured on this record, you’d be a fool to miss it.
Fine Red Mist made a record that honours the dream-pop gods while carving out something nastier. Twenty minutes of proof that heavy and pretty don’t have to be enemies. Play it or get out.