doused – Sckrpnch EP

Philadelphia undoubtedly punches way above its weight when it comes to producing shoegaze bands. The sheer number of top tier bands emanating from that amazing city is mind blowing. Among them are doused, a band I’ve been following since their 2021 debut album Murmur. That debut gave them a foothold, the singles released after kept their name moving, and now their new EP sckrpnch arrives after four years sounding leaner, sharper and more sure of itself. Emma Hansson, Mike Wolfe and Vince Duong still work with the same core ingredients of shoegaze, dream pop, post punk and new wave, yet this EP feels more fully realised than anything they’ve released to date.  

doused have always understood that volume means more when a tune can survive underneath it. On sckrpnch that balance is everywhere. You get sweetness and abrasion in the same breath, and the band make it sound easy. Parallels will be drawn to the titans of the scene My Bloody Valentine but hey, that’s ok. The band have “Rip off yr idols” emblazoned on a slip sleeve for their debut album. They are fully conscious that, like folk music, shoegaze is just another musical tradition to be carried on by the next generation. Gatekeepers can go sit in the corner.

Let’s drop the needle and let it wash over us.

Opening piece ‘preamble’ lasts barely a minute. It has the mood of a half-remembered intro tape from some older underground show, something intimate and a little ominous. By the time it folds into the next track you are fully inside doused’s world.

From there ‘dull yr knife (on my skull)’ comes in with real bite. The guitars have a hard edge to them, almost serrated, and the rhythm section gives the song a proper shove from underneath. The vocal sits in the middle of the noise with poise, neither buried nor overlit. Perfectly balanced. You can tell there is a strong pop instinct here, tucked inside all that scrape and swell. The melody sticks fast. So does the title, which feels ugly, funny and faintly menacing all at once.

The title track keeps the pressure up and pares the whole thing down into something short, fast and bruising. ‘sckrpnch’ has that lovely quality great noisy pop can have where every second feels packed and urgent yet nothing feels cluttered. The bass gives the song a thick backbone, Duong’s drums snap it into shape, and the synth touches stop it from turning into pure blunt force. I love how the band let the vocal lines peek through the racket rather than trying to sit above it. That choice gives the song shoegaze allure.  

Then comes ‘xoxo’, which for me is where the EP really opens up. You can hear doused enjoying the meeting point between sweetness and abrasion here without making a big show of it. The melody has a bright sting to it, almost candy coated on first contact, yet the guitars keep rubbing against that surface until the whole thing feels frayed at the edges. There is something wonderfully sly about naming a song ‘xoxo’ and then loading it with this much grit. It also says a lot about doused as writers. They know how to bend familiar pop language into something strange enough to feel fresh. It was a no brainer to include this one on my April DKFM Shoegaze Radio Show.

At over six minutes, ‘eyelash’ gives the band space to stretch the EP’s ideas into a bigger shape. The guitars just explode out the speakers; there’s no reason why they should still sound so delicate and warm. But they do, feedback licking round the spaces in between like punctuation marks in the ether. Beneath it all is an emotional pop ballad with hooks for days. This is the one I find myself coming back to again and again as it blows my tiny mind. The guitar solo in the closing section just fighting with the feedback to make a sound like a galaxy crying is insane. The ethereal outro acts as a segue into the final track while capturing the melody in skeletal form.

Closing track ‘slug’ does something smart by refusing to treat that longer piece as the grand final statement. Instead, doused end with something more compact and wiry, a track that gets in, does its damage and leaves. The guitars sound filthy in the best way, the drums keep everything taut, and the vocal delivery has a detached cool that suits the song’s title perfectly. There is a grim little swagger to ‘slug’ that I really enjoyed. It closes the EP with a smirk, which feels exactly right for a band whose songs keep one eye on the hook and the other on the amp.

Across these six tracks, doused show they are a band who know exactly how much volume to apply and when to let a melody cut through the grime. sckrpnch is a brief EP, yet none the less memorable for it. Far from it. The guitars scrape and flare, the rhythms stay tight, and underneath all that noise sits a strong instinct for melody that gives each song its own afterlife. Four years on from Murmur, this feels like the work of a band returning with a clearer sense of purpose and a firmer grip on their sound. Every choice feels considered, from the short sharp shock of the title track to the slow burn ache of ‘eyelash’ and the wiry final jab of ‘slug’. By the time it ends, sckrpnch has done exactly what its title promises. Prepare to be knocked out!

sckrpnch is out now on vinyl via The Funeral Party. You can check it out over on the doused Bandcamp page.

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