B-Side Guys

There’s something fitting about a shoegaze band born from literal flames. After their rehearsal space burned to the ground—destroying their amps, guitars, and effects—Dutch collective Honey I’m Home might have surrendered to defeat. Instead, they channeled that destruction into “Wishful Thinking,” a debut single that stands as both resurrection and arrival.

What immediately distinguishes this track is how it balances shoegaze’s traditional wall-of-sound aesthetics with unexpectedly vulnerable lyricism. “Cold stare to make me feel what you wanted to say/So afraid, but I’ll stay cause I want to believe,” vocalist Thom Schotanus intones through layers of reverb, establishing the song’s central tension between connection and disconnect. This lyrical approach anchors the swirling instrumentation in human experience, preventing the fuzz from becoming mere aesthetic exercise.

The supergroup element adds intriguing context—with members drawn from Marathon, Jagd, and Banji, Honey I’m Home arrives with built-in musical vocabulary and chemistry. Yet nothing about “Wishful Thinking” feels like leftover ideas from previous projects. Instead, the band crafts something that honors shoegaze tradition while establishing its own identity within the genre’s current revival.

Producer Sonny Diperri (known for work with DIIV, Julie, and Protomartyr) provides crucial collaboration, helping the self-recorded track achieve the textural depth necessary for its emotional weight. The production creates a paradoxical intimacy—vocals that feel simultaneously close and distant, guitars that envelop rather than assault.

Most compelling is how the lyrical content mirrors the band’s origin story. “And I’m longing back to old times, where you could imagine it being gone,” speaks to both the song’s theme of disconnection and the band’s literal loss of equipment. The refrain “Wishful thinking/Over dreaming” captures that liminal space between hope and delusion—territory the band seems to know well, having already convinced themselves they’re “cursed.”

Despite this supposed hex, Honey I’m Home has quickly established live credentials, opening for impressive names like Goat Girl, Hotline TNT, and even performing at Girl in Red’s show at Amsterdam’s AFAS Live. This rapid ascent suggests that whatever curse they believe follows them might actually be disguised fortune—the kind that transforms destruction into creative catalyst.