The band share a new EP.

cruush are a band that so magically takes the darker, fuzzier aspects of the shoegaze sound a complements it with a more delicate and lighter side. Think of the merging of Wolf Alice and My Bloody Valentine, and somehow making that work flawlessly. With a description like that, it’s no surprise that the Manchester four-piece are getting so much traction of late really, getting themselves noticed by Steve Lamacq and Chris Hawkins (BBC Radio 6) and John Kennedy (Radio X). They’ve also quickly made themselves known in their live acts, quickly gaining many a fan when supporting the likes of The Lounge Society, BDRMM and NewDad to name but a few.  

Now the band stands at the release of their sophomore EP, Nice Things Now, All The Time. Commenting on the title of their newly released EP, the band say, “The EP title comes from a bit we were doing in the car, a Trumpian/Saul Goodman style character selling you the promise of ‘nice things now, all the time’, contrasting with the dreary reality of our lives in the city. We’re all skint, overworked, bored and just want ‘nice things now, all the time’. Let’s feed Lowry shrooms and take him to Thorpe Park.” A real juxtaposition for sure, but that’s no challenge for a band whose sound can be oxymoronic on paper and yet not be a problem for them whatsoever in performance. So, what do cruush have for us in this release?

The EP begins with Water Breathers, a delightfully melodic track whose introduction can trick you into thinking it’s an instrumental piece. Amber Warren’s soft and mellow vocals break this illusion around the two minute mark, moving on from what was previously quite a mysterious-sounding piece. It slowly starts to intertwine its more velvety shoegaze sounds into the song, and the riffs distort more and more the further you go into the song. By the end of the track, it’s hardly recognisable as the same song, having twisted so far from its gentler beginnings. 

As She Grows was the first single released for the new EP back in 2023, which quickly garnered a lot of attention at the time. It’s fairly easy to understand why – for such a short track they managed to ram the piece with wonderful warped and distorted guitar riffs and these joyous-sounding vocals which do their best to put a smile on your face. The chorus is nothing but an absolute delight of emotion, power, and generally just extremely well-put-together music. Amber probably put it best with her description of the track, as “just a happy silly song about nature and fairies”. I think it does a great job of showing that lighter side of shoegaze, a genre which, when people think of, they probably picture subdued themes and melancholic overtones. As She Grows is full of a refreshing and very welcomed bliss.

“A song for all those treading water in their mid-twenties, capturing the essence of imposter syndrome and the sense of isolation that can accompany this stage of our lives. It speaks to a fear of not measuring up to expectations and the uncertainty of trying to navigate early adulthood.” This is how Amber describes the next track, Cotton Wool. With its more muted vocal work and instead moving the emphasis toward the guitar work, the song manages to encapsulate this feeling of a general loss of direction and not knowing where to turn well. It’s probably the slowest song on the release in terms of tempo, which allows a greater appreciation of its intricacy, and certainly needs more than one listen to fully be appreciated. “The entire song tumbled out of an open tuning I was playing on a 12-string,” recalls guitarist Arthur, describing the process behind the track. Perhaps as a testament to not only the group as a bunch of twenty-somethings cohesively brought together by their shared passion but as a tightly knit group of friends who share so much energy between one another, Arthur adds, “We instantly had the same sonic vision.”

Songs that seem to veer off themes and styles that are generally seen throughout an EP or album always seem to strike a little soft spot with me. cruush provides this with the penultimate track, Ladybird Song. It’s noticeably much more folky than anything else on the EP – basic but well-structured acoustic riffs allow the vocals to take a much more centred stage. The shoegaze fuzziness is all still there, but dialled back, almost to the point it feels more of an aura encompassing the song than anything else. The track is perhaps a surprise, but certainly one you’d be happy to stumble upon. 

The EP ends on the sombre and perhaps sobering Headspace, a song that centres around the final stages of a lost love, however that may be, and trying to push away those final thoughts of bitterness and sadness over what could have been. Amber’s vocals work perfectly to garner this feeling, with its softness being able to channel that temporal loss of meaning that is always paired with such an emotional journey. Despite the song leaning heavily into the despair of it all, with lyrics such as, “Count the days away, ‘Til you’re out my headspace / And you thought it was a game / And nothing is the same”, there are parts of the song where the aura certainly feelings more uplifting. The power of some of the instrumental parts almost act if it’s the overcoming of the situation and finally removing said person from their headspace. 

Overall, Nice Things Now, All The Time is a deeply complex EP that explores a wide range of feelings and emotional states, sometimes all at the same time. It’s going to be one of those that you go to time and time again – and every single time you’re going to have a different experience. It’s one to get lost in.

Nice Things Now, All The Time is out now via Heist or Hit.

See cruush live: