From the opening track of “Now is the Time,” Detroit-based artist Gwen Katherine, who records under the moniker Hey Look Listen, establishes herself as a master of tension and release. Out September 26th, 2025, the nine-track collection is drenched in layers of distortion, atmospheric dream pop textures, and an unflinching lyrical honesty that makes it as gutting as it is cathartic. The album wrestles with demons—fear, perfectionism, cynicism, and the suffocating pull of the past—yet what emerges is a body of work that feels strangely liberating. Katherine catalogues her pain and confronts it head-on, shaping it into something achingly beautiful.
The record opens with “Leave it All Behind,” a fitting prelude for the themes that follow. The track swells like a storm cloud, with fuzzed-out guitars colliding against Katherine’s breathy yet determined vocals. It’s a song about the impossible wish to shed everything that clings to you, both real and imagined. There’s a haunting duality here, where each chord feels like it could collapse into silence, yet the drive forward is undeniable. By the end, the listener is fully immersed in the sonic haze that becomes the album’s signature.
“Lowell,” one of the lead singles, sharpens that haze into something more precise. The song is a study in contrasts—jangling guitar lines weave between crashing waves of distortion, capturing the restless energy of a mind that won’t sit still. Lyrically, Katherine stares down memories that refuse to fade, grappling with a past that gnaws at the edges of the present. The way the track grows, layering textures until it feels suffocating and strangely euphoric, mirrors the experience of ruminating thoughts. It’s no surprise this track was chosen as a single; it encapsulates the heart of the record’s sonic and emotional DNA.
Another standout is “Life Not Lived,” the third single, which brings Katherine’s knack for lyrical self-dissection to the forefront. Here, she explores perfectionism and regret, the gnawing sense of time wasted under impossible standards. The instrumentation mirrors the theme—starting restrained and delicate, then exploding into a full shoegaze wall of sound. It’s music that aches with the weight of what could have been, yet there’s still hope embedded in the soaring choruses, like sunlight breaking through stained glass.
“You Don’t Exist” strips the sound back slightly, though its subject matter is no less heavy. This is Katherine at her most vulnerable, reflecting on absence, erasure, and the strange disorientation of realizing how much of ourselves we tie to others. There’s a ghostliness to the track, an ambient undertone that lingers like a phantom presence. Following it, “Stop Motion” jolts the listener awake, a dynamic, restless track that lurches and collapses in ways that mimic the jittery frames of its namesake. It’s anxious, jittering energy captured in sound, and its unpredictability makes it one of the album’s most exciting moments.
The midsection of the record—”Ease My Mind” and “Underwater“—offers some of its most immersive soundscapes. “Ease My Mind” leans into dream pop shimmer, drenched in reverb yet grounded by Katherine’s intimate delivery. It feels like a plea whispered through static. “Underwater,” on the other hand, lives up to its title, pulling the listener into submerged, murky tones. Guitars ripple like currents, and the weight of its lyrics makes it feel like sinking—a slow, heavy descent into the depths of one’s own fears.
“Always Wrong” might be the most raw confession on the album. Here, Katherine turns the knife inward, addressing self-doubt and the toxic cycles of self-criticism that perfectionism can fuel. The track’s distorted peaks and valleys mirror the spirals of inner dialogue, sometimes hushed, sometimes overwhelming. It’s painful, but it’s also cathartic—proof that facing these thoughts out loud can strip them of their power.
The closer, “The Way It’s Been,” ties the project together with sonic and emotional finality. Featuring fellow musician Brian Ross on guitar, it’s expansive yet intimate, pulling threads from the album’s earlier songs into one climactic piece. There’s both resignation and release here: an acknowledgment of cycles that feel impossible to escape, but also the faint glimmer that naming them is the first step toward change. Ross’s guitar lines intertwine with Katherine’s voice like a final exhale, leaving the listener suspended in the album’s luminous fog long after the track fades.
In the end, “Now is the Time” is a confrontation and a mirror held up to the parts of ourselves we’d rather keep hidden. Katherine’s ability to translate fear, regret, and cynicism into layers of dreamlike distortion makes the record intimate and massive, personal yet universal. It’s an album that documents struggle and transforms it into something transcendent. For fans of shoegaze, dream pop, and raw, soul-baring songwriting, Hey Look Listen has crafted one of the year’s most affecting releases.
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