The Bernadette Maries - Soft
The current shoegaze revival becomes considerably more interesting when bands stop treating the 1990s as somewhere they need to return to. The Bernadette Maries belong to that younger generation for whom distortion, blurred guitars and dreamlike textures are less a historical destination than a vocabulary that can be combined with post-punk, alternative rock and much more contemporary rhythmic ideas.
That approach lies at the centre of Soft, the Brussels band's debut album, released on September 18, 2026 through Paris label Géographie Records. Across eleven tracks and approximately 38 minutes, The Bernadette Maries bring together shoegaze, post-punk and indie rock, balancing dense guitar textures with nervous rhythms and an instinct for melodies that remain accessible beneath the noise.
Formed in Brussels in 2024, the group developed around Daria Mészàros, Guy Tournay and Romain Rouserez, with David Temprano associated with the project and handling drums on the album. Its members already possessed connections with different corners of the Belgian underground: Mészàros is associated with Lavender Witch, Tournay previously played with Siamese Queens and Animal Youth, Rouserez with Garance Midi, while Temprano is connected with Landrose and Cere.
Those different backgrounds help explain why The Bernadette Maries rarely sound interested in remaining inside a single genre. References including My Bloody Valentine, Cocteau Twins, DIIV, Duster, Julie, They Are Gutting a Body of Water, Deftones and Fontaines D.C. provide useful coordinates, but Soft is most convincing when those influences begin overlapping rather than appearing separately.
The group first introduced itself with “Dream Place” in September 2024, followed by “Nouvelle Vague” and “We Know Everything.” These early recordings eventually formed part of the LvvV EP, released in February 2025. Interestingly, the material had initially been conceived as a demo intended for promoters before the band decided that it deserved to exist as a proper release.
The transition towards Soft subsequently became apparent through “The Closer You Look,” “ESO” and “Missing Bernadette.” Together, these songs revealed a band increasingly willing to stretch the boundaries of its original guitar music without sacrificing its physical impact.
“ESO” is particularly revealing in this respect. Its saturated guitars and atmospheric layers clearly belong to the shoegaze vocabulary, but the rhythmic approach introduces elements associated with drum & bass, creating a sense of movement quite different from the genre's traditional reliance upon enormous but relatively static walls of sound. Rather than floating inside the distortion, the song seems continually propelled through it.
“Missing Bernadette” explores another side of the group, bringing together shimmering guitars, heavier saturation and a more pronounced melancholy. Moving between dream pop, shoegaze and alternative rock, the track deals with the way absent people can continue occupying emotional space, giving its atmospheric qualities a particularly appropriate sense of distance.
That combination of physical movement and introspection becomes important across Soft. The Bernadette Maries write about love, existential uncertainty, melancholy and the difficulty of finding meaning in a world that increasingly appears unstable, drawing inspiration not only from music but also from literature, society and cinema.
The album was written and produced by The Bernadette Maries, with the principal recording handled by Guy Tournay at Belgrade Studio and additional recording by Clément Marion. David Temprano performs the drums, while Marc Porteau mixed the record and Greg Obis completed the mastering. The visual identity was developed by Alice Butterin and Romain Rouserez, with graphic design by Damien Aresta.
What gives Soft its personality is the way these different ingredients coexist without requiring the band to choose between them. The blurred guitar architecture associated with classic shoegaze can suddenly encounter the colder urgency of post-punk, while dream-pop atmosphere can be interrupted by rhythms considerably more aggressive than the music initially suggests.
The result reflects several generations of alternative guitar music simultaneously. My Bloody Valentine and Cocteau Twins remain understandable reference points for texture, while DIIV and They Are Gutting a Body of Water belong to a more recent lineage in which shoegaze has already absorbed influences from indie rock, grunge, electronic music and other forms of underground guitar music.
The Bernadette Maries seem particularly comfortable within that second tradition. They do not treat shoegaze as a collection of rules governing how guitars should sound, how vocals should be mixed or how slowly a song should move. Instead, distortion and reverb become materials that can be reshaped according to what each composition requires.
This also helps explain why the album can sound simultaneously familiar and contemporary. There is nothing particularly new about burying guitars beneath layers of effects, but placing those textures against more restless rhythms changes their function. The haze no longer necessarily produces stasis or escape; sometimes it creates tension.
Despite having formed only in 2024, The Bernadette Maries have also developed rapidly through live performance. The group has appeared several times at Botanique in Brussels, played in France and the Netherlands and shared bills with artists including Bodega, Ditz, English Teacher, The Ex, Gurriers, Maquina, NewDad and Humour. The release of Soft continues into further live dates, including Détonation Festival in Besançon and album presentations in Brussels and Paris.
That experience may partly explain the physical character that remains underneath the album's more atmospheric moments. Even when guitars become blurred or expansive, The Bernadette Maries rarely sound completely detached from the energy of a band playing together.
For a group barely two years into its existence, Soft therefore feels less like an attempt to define a fixed identity than the beginning of a much broader exploration. Its strongest characteristic is precisely the refusal to decide that shoegaze, post-punk, dream pop and alternative rock must remain separate territories.
The Bernadette Maries clearly understand the history they are drawing from, but they do not appear intimidated by it. My Bloody Valentine, Cocteau Twins or DIIV provide vocabulary rather than instructions, while contemporary rhythms and the band's own post-punk instincts prevent Soft from becoming another affectionate reconstruction of the 1990s.
That makes the title particularly effective. There is certainly softness here, in the melodies, voices and moments when guitars seem to dissolve into atmosphere, but it continually exists beside something sharper, louder and more nervous.
Soft may be wrapped in shoegaze fog, but The Bernadette Maries are already looking for ways to move through it rather than simply disappearing inside it.
© Thusblog
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