Picture Postcard Release Shoegaze/Emo New Single ‘Returning’ – (Irish Shoegaze)
Born of the ashes from one of Ireland’s most promising shoegaze bands, Picture Postcard are making their mark with their second single ‘Returning’. Self-labelled ‘dreamo’ the band set themselves apart from contemporaries by fusing together the ethereal lush soundscapes of dreampop/shoegaze with the more visceral elements of 90’s and early 2000’s emo. It’s this unique mix we hear on ‘Returning’ as shimmering guitars and pads are contrasted by more abrasive vocals, providing new textures to this sonic tapestry.
The band consists of AJ Das (Guitar/Vocals), Sean O’Reilly (Bass/Backing Vocals), Ignas Baranauskas (Guitar), Gabriel Motos (Drums) and Rohan Bhattacharya (Synths) and feature members of Skyless, SNAFU and Epilogue. Having spent the latter half of 2024 developing their sound in secret before releasing their debut single ‘October’ in February 2025 to announce themselves onto the scene.
The song writing process for the band is an entirely collaborative one, with members free to bring ideas to the practice space and the band developing the instrumental before AJ takes it away, stripping it back to its base parts on an acoustic to write vocals. It’s this process we hear on ‘Returning’.
An insistent drumbeat opens the song before the levee breaks as guitars and bass join in, a tsunami of sound that expands exponentially once Rohan’s synth joins. Juxtaposition is at the centre of the Picture Postcard sound, swirling pads are cut through by overdriven guitars reminiscent of Sunny Day Real or Texan heavy-gazers Trauma Ray. The groove of the track pulls us into the verse, AJs vocals ran through a transistor radio, sounding like a call from the past, a half-faded memory. It’s fitting then that lyrically the song draws inspiration from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, the psychological surrealness of the movie lending itself to the dreamy ambiguous lyrics, that encapsulate how it could feel to forget someone you loved so dearly. Sean’s backing vocals, while brief, bring a lot to the song, another texture woven amongst the dense sonics of the song. Eschewing a conventional verse/chorus format, with the guitars becoming the hook, the song becomes an almost stream of consciousness release, not necessarily starting at point A to point B but section of something bigger. With this in mind, the band consider the two singles to work symbiotically together as an introduction to the band’s burgeoning sound.
We it came time to record, the band tracked drums at Beardfire Studios, with the rest of the track recorded at AJ’s box room home studio, which allowed the band the time and space to layer in guitars ran through various fuzz and reverb pedals to create their gargantuan sound. The song was mastered by Max Lajoie known for his work with various emo/post-hardcore bands, it was important to have someone familiar with the genre to ensure they captured the bands sound correctly.
A stunning sophomore release that feels and sounds like a band much further into their career. Confident and with definite vision of how they want to sound, the production on the track is massive, with each element carefully considered as it what sonic space it occupies. Ones to watch.