Review
If Not Winter is the debut full-length from Wisp (Natalie Lu), released in August 2025. It leans heavily into shoegaze / nu-gaze territory, riding fuzzed-out guitars, reverb, crashing drums and ethereal vocals. The album touches a lot of familiar territory — dreamy noise, whispery melodies, intimacy — but it also shows Wisp trying to push the formula in small ways: blending bits of pop melody, acoustic touches, and strong lyrical themes of love, loss, self-doubt, grief and yearning.
There are moments where it really works. Tracks like Sword, Breathe Onto Me, and Save Me Now deliver tension and release in satisfying ways; Guide Light and Latvia provide atmospheric shifts that help the album breathe. Wisp’s soft, intimate vocals are often effective in quieter moments. But those strengths also highlight some of the album’s limitations: the lyrics sometimes veer into melodrama or cliché, the sound occasionally feels derivative, and much of the middle of the record blurs together, making it harder to distinguish one track from the next.
On balance, If Not Winter is a promising debut. It doesn’t fully transcend the genre, but it demonstrates Wisp’s talent and gives enough high points to suggest she’s heading somewhere interesting. - Zella
