Minaxi | Khwab

Sean

Minaxi’s album “Khwab” jumps around a little too much for me to wholeheartedly recommend it. Although there are great moments that surface the album’s intentions are muddied by so many desperate sounds. Tracks like “Stargazer”, and “Moist” stand as songs I appreciated. The two tracks are great examples of musicians building on tropes of the popular shoegaze genre to subvert expectations and pivot into an interesting new direction. Beyond these moments the rest of the album did not do much to hold my attention. 

Dillon

Relative newcomers to the Shoegazer scene outta Brooklyn, Minaxi, bring us their debut full-length in Khwab. It’s funny how genre-labelling and self-description can cue a listener for certain expectations. I think Minaxi is an interesting band, they’re far quieter, more understated, and cleaner produced than most shoegaze I’ve been exposed to. This record strikes me as an interesting but shaky introduction to the band, a bit rough around the edges, a bit monotonous in stretches, and a bit uneven when it comes to vocal delivery meshing with what proves to be fairly strong backing instrumentation, I’m thinking here of tracks like Love, Love and Saturnine where the vocals almost seem to demand a quieting rather than attempting to match the energy of the backing instrumentation. This, in and of itself, isn’t necessarily a bad thing and I think on like Stargazer and Belladonna this sort of variation in volume and intensity is executed in a far less jarring and far more cohesive way. I think this is overall a strong if somewhat disjointed debut effort, and if we see more tracks like Stargazer and Belladonna from Minaxi I think the follow-up to Khwab will be quite something.   

Greg

I have to agree with fellow fam members on this–Stargazer was such a standout for me and feels like the right direction for Minaxi to hone in and expand on. Overall, this full length has some really nice moments that give me hope for Minaxi’s future.