Doomgaze girls Blackwater Holylight blend doom-laden hard rock riffing with walls of psychedelic shoegaze on new song Heavy, Why?

Blackwater Holylight is a new name to me but it’s a name I like. l also like the name of their label, Suicide Squeeze Records. And I specially like the noise they make on this single, the aptly titled Heavy, Why?

I even like the nickname that’s been given to the mish-mash of genres they play – doomgaze.

They are an all-female hard rock outfit from Portland, Oregon, whose signature sound is a wall of heavy, ethereal doom emanating from shoegaze guitars married to ambient synths – dark and dense, but also dreamy and melodic.

Mikayla Mayhew’s low, dirge-like riff and Eliese Dorsay’s propulsive drums form the bedrock for Sunny Faris’ fragile vocals, while Sarah McKenna’s ambient synths float in the background.

Having escaped the gloom of the Pacific Northwest, they now live in the sunnier climes of Los Angeles, the aptly named singer Sunny Faris says the song “cryptically but intentionally speaks to the experience of being disembodied.”