Cruush

“New Bangers” NME 

“On Repeat” The Line of Best Fit 

“sure to have fans foaming at the mouth for a full-length project” Consequence

“a four-piece who seem to click into place with remarkable ease” CLASH

“instantly intoxicating” GIGWISE

Manchester shoegaze risers cruush release new single ‘Features’ today - it precedes debut EP Wishful Thinker, out April 14th via Heist or Hit. 

“I guess you can say our music has the sweet elements of having a crush on someone but the screeching of an industrial car crusher” goes the droll mantra from cruush vocalist & front-person Amber Warren.

Teaming up with tastemaker label, and fellow Mancunians, Heist or Hit - responsible for launching the careers of Her’s, pizzagirl, Eades and more - offers cruush the chance to spread this message far and wide.

And new single ‘Features’ is a key part of this tale. A shoegaze tranquilliser, it showcases both the eerie softer side that the 4-piece can wield and their screeching harder edge. The track has an important place in the cruush origin story, as the band reveal:

“Our oldest song and first example of what we consider our sound. Originally an Amber solo piece from pre uni, we gazed it up adding slightly noisier chorus’ and the cacophonic ending. The perfect coming together of our influences, it sat slightly out of place in our set for a couple of years until our songwriting caught up and we knew exactly the direction we wanted to head in sonically. Probably the song we’ve been most excited to record, and the song we get asked about the most, since day 1.”

Her part in this meeting of minds that ultimately became the genus of the bands rise is drilled-down upon even further by Amber:

“Sharing ‘Features’ is cathartic in a way. It feels like my brain is being scanned and the lyrics are incredibly vulnerable. The song is about how I battle with my mental health, and how I never feel safe or secure, even when everything around me is normal. I suppose I'm personifying my feelings and ‘Features’ is about them.”

These insights combined highlight the way in which the quartet’s impressionistic sonics are met by mournful utterances on toxicity, physiological decline, narcissistic behaviours and pessimistic tendencies. While more traditional approaches to shoegaze suffocate the vocal and message, Amber’s melodic splendour is antidote-like, stealing attention from the tidal waves of noise with queasy timbres of disillusion, doubt and confusion.  

“Meeting each other in Manchester and sharing our time here has shaped our sound more than anything else” admits guitarist Arthur Boyd. So, no matter if cruush lean into 80s indie, alternative 90s or the Seattle sound, they’re able to plug their rock into the aquatic textures of the city in which they reside. Think the delicacy of Wolf Alice whipped in the cyclonic guitars of My Bloody Valentine.  

Broadcasters and journalists alike have been enchanted, with Jack Saunders (BBC Radio 1), Steve Lamacq, Tom Robinson & Chris Hawkins (BBC Radio 6), John Kennedy (Radio X), Simone Butler (Soho Radio), Consequence of Sound, Bandcamp Daily, NME, CLASH and GIGWISE all lining up to call themselves fans. 

On the live side, cruush have bagged supports with BDRMM, NewDad, The Lounge Society, Far Caspian, Pale Blue Eyes, Priestgate and Ian Sweet, while selling out hometown headline dates at Gullivers & YES.  

Wishful Thinker - the debut EP from cruush - is out April 14th via Heist or Hit