Blushing are a shoegaze band from Austin that got musical busybody Mark Gardener to master what is apparently their third full-length record. Seriously – since Ride is performing again, doesn't Gardener have enough to do? I appears that he is trying to single-handedly kickstart the latest shoegaze revival.

Another interesting point about Blushing is that they are, well, the Abba of the modern shoegaze scene. The band consists of two couples: vocalist and guitarist Michelle Soto, drummer Jacob Soto, vocalist and bassist Christina Carmona, and guitarist Noe Carmona.

The music they make is pretty interesting. The songs sparkle and bounce along under a mess of distortion paired cheery female vocals. The obvious comparison is Lush, but i always felt there was an undertone of English melancholy to Lush.

Blushing have more of a happy Southwestern desert feel to their work, which brings to mind Alison's Halo. And, sure, there is a bit of a comparison there, but Alison's Halo was more about the feedback, the walls of sheer noise. For Blushing, shoegaze is an aesthetic choice laid over pop tunes. It just feels to me like the bands are coming at this from opposite directions.

So the record kicks off with what I take to be a sort of "tradition" is modern Shoegaze, and that is a track that is a brief interlude of feedbacky noodling. Some noise to start the proceeding in the less than a minute Intro which segues seamlessly into Tamagotchi, the first real song here. It is a bouncy track of great rhythms and whirring guitar.

Seafoam is even sparklier, almost blindingly so as the guitars really shimmer. This moves into Slyce, where a mess of tremolo reminds me of Elastica and their popular Wire tribute tune.

Silver Teeth. Is almost sludgy, with a slower pace and gobs of distortion. If the vocals weren't so clear and bright this would appeal to the residents of the Doom Metal lists I frequent. It's like a girl pop group covering something off of the second side of My War, which I have to admit is pretty awesome.

They keep the pace slower for Sugarcoat, a gorgeous tune with a slight melancholy feel to the whirring guitar buzz.

They pick the pace back up for Fizz with insistent rhythms, and Say When, the most purely Lush-like song here.

I really like Pull You In Two, where the guitars shimmer like Lush, the bass rolls, and the vocals have the clear precision of Regina Sosinksi in Mira. I think it might be a different vocalist here than on the bulk of the other tunes. On Charms, the voice reminds me a little of the Sundays' Harriet Wheeler, but the guitars stand out here. The are jangly like something Robin Guthrie played on late-era Cocteau Twins. Very nicely done.

Continuing to mix up the vocals, Soto and Carmona harmonize on album closer Debt, and I am reminded of School of Seven Bells.