Midrift

Silhouette is the debut full-length from San Francisco trio Midrift, released June 5, 2026 on their own Midrift Is A Band LLC imprint via Stem distribution. It arrives after years of viral singles and EPs that turned Gus Mehrkam, Manoa Neukermans, and Kai Neukermans into one of the more talked-about names in the shoegaze revival before they had even dropped a proper album — a rare position to be in, and one the band navigates with more confidence than their age might suggest.

Ten tracks long and barely over thirty minutes, Silhouette is dense without being bloated. The album opener "over anything" functions as a mission statement: emo bones, shoegaze surface, post-hardcore urgency. "silhouette," the title track, pulls back into something dreamier before the record pushes back through "not far gone," "bouquet," and "reaching for you." Previously released singles "tell me everything," "safe and sound," and closer "if you have to go" round out a tracklist that delivers the kind of emotional directness that made Midrift go viral in the first place. NME praised the album's emotional immediacy while noting the band still have work to do in carving out a sound fully their own — a fair read on a debut that shows enormous promise without yet transcending its influences.

Formed from vocalist and guitarist Gus Mehrkam and brothers Manoa (bass) and Kai Neukermans (drums), Midrift had already amassed millions of streams and landed on the NME 100 before Silhouette arrived. They're a band who clearly absorbed a lot of 2010s alternative music — Basement, Title Fight, My Bloody Valentine — and are now working out how to make it theirs. On this evidence, that moment feels close.