No Love Lost To Kindness

For their fifth studio album, Christchurch-turned-global dream-pop mainstays Yumi Zouma pull back the velvet curtain to reveal a sharper, heavier grit underneath. Written during a period of creative friction, No Love Lost to Kindness deliberately steers away from the polished, airy synth-pop of their past and steers directly into the driving, guitar-forward world of indie rock and post-punk textures.

Driven by the heavy, energetic rhythm section of drummer Olivia Campion, tracks like "Bashville on the Sugar" and the pop-punk-inflected "Blister" inject a brand-new velocity into the band's catalogue. Elsewhere, the standout track "Drag" brilliantly pairs industrial synth textures and grunge-leaning guitars with Christie Simpson’s signature, candid vocal delivery. It’s an album of two halves, though; the second act cools down into a meditative, stripped-back space with late-night atmospheric tracks like "Chicago 2am" and the gorgeous closer "Waiting for the Cards to Fall."

Far from a complete abandonment of their roots, this feels like an organic, bolder evolution—retaining the warm harmonies and earworm melodies we love, while successfully flirting with shoegaze and indie-rock palettes. A fantastic, emotionally exposed pivot.

For fans of: Alvvays, Hatchie, Fazerdaze, and The Beths.