On April 17, Bay Area-based band Bliss Abyss will release their anticipated self-titled album (pre-order). Today the band is sharing “wrecked,” the final pre-release single from the album. The song follows the album’s acclaimed singles “red disgusting” and “star” which are out now on all streaming services.
On the song the band’s singer/guitarist Peter Wallner says:
‘wrecked is about the beauty and destruction of when someone’s chaos is impossible to ignore. It’s the strange intimacy of trying to keep up with someone who is one spark away from catching fire.’
Bliss Abyss conjures a world where shoegaze haze collides with post-punk urgency — sometimes dark and angular, sometimes bright and jangly, always driven by the melodic instincts of singer-guitarist Peter Wallner. Their debut single, “star” offers the first glimpse of what producer Joe Finocchio calls “an album of timeless singles,” marking the arrival of a band both steeped in history and pushing into new territory.
Though new, Bliss Abyss is rooted in decades of the Bay Area music scene Wallner has long been a fixture of, from the industrial shoegaze duo Astronomers Anonymous to the anthemic synth-punk trio Whisper. He played in Some Ember, pioneering a drop-tuned “Lodge Goth” guitar style inspired by Angelo Badalamenti, David Lynch’s go-to composer. Under his stage name Peter Lightning, he was also a member of the post-punk outfit Wax Idols.
Wallner later joined Heaven’s Club as a keyboardist, a move that led to him playing guitar with Deafheaven on their extensive European, UK, and Scandinavian tour in 2022. Across more than a dozen projects, he has refined a sound that blends atmosphere with urgency, melancholy with melody.
Bliss Abyss itself began during the pandemic as a synth-pop experiment before evolving into the three piece band it is today. The project crystallized when Wallner met producer and bassist Joe Finocchio while performing in the hardcore punk group Culture Spy. After hearing early demos, Finocchio quickly committed to producing an album.
The forthcoming album is a collection of songs all with a unique sonic identity, yet tied together by Wallner’s songwriting voice. From the feel-good hit of the fall, “star” to jagged post-punk burners, every song is designed to stand on its own while forming a bigger sonic identity. Lyrically, Wallner writes dreamlike confessions where heartbreak and desire unravel like method actors impersonating the weather, haunted objects, Polaroid character studies, and feral instincts— cosmic vignettes that are as intimate as they are surreal.
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