Kevin Bronson on May 8th, 2018

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When indie-rockers Film School got their start in the Bay Area over a decade ago, shoegaze bands were niche kids, outliers doing inscrutable music that was antithetical not only to what was happening commercially but much of what dominated the indie landscape as well. All the seminal bands in the genre were in retirement; the artists exploring ethereal textures fashioned by guitar distortion, effects and feedback toiled with only cult followings.

“Our [self-titled] album came out in 2006, when bands like the Strokes and Franz Ferdinand were in full swing,” singer-guitarist Greg Bertens says. “The music landscape was totally different then — shoegaze was a bad word. That’s changed.”

Since then, the L.A.-based Bertens helmed Film School through many changes encompassing sound, geography and personnel. “When this lineup first came together in the early 2000s,” he muses now, “I never thought we’d be doing some of our best work 15 or so years later.”

But here they are: original member Bertens, along with Jason Ruck, Justin Labo and Nyles Lannon, announcing the fifth Film School album and the first full-length since 2010’s “Fission.” It’s called “Bright to Death,” a title that came to Bertens during the week the desert-baked band spent near Joshua Tree recording it. The album, which features drummer Adam Wade (Shudder to Think, Jawbox) on several tracks, was mixed by Dan Long at Headwest Studios and mastered by David Gardner at Infrasonic Sound.

The album opens with “Crushin’” (out this week), a honeyed, unhurried confessional that rolls in on a thick bass line and envelops every ounce of longing in twinkling guitar and washes of reverb. The band suggests it might fit on a mixtape between Beach House and Slowdive. Hard to argue. Those niche kids probably have a mixtape they made in the ’90s they might want to tweak.

“Bright to Death” is tentatively scheduled for a fall release.

||| Stream: “Crushin’”