{"id":764023,"date":"2026-07-15T08:45:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T08:45:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/764023\/"},"modified":"2026-07-15T08:45:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T08:45:14","slug":"minneapolis-shoegazers-shes-green-are-playing-the-long-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/764023\/","title":{"rendered":"Minneapolis shoegazers She’s Green are playing the long game"},"content":{"rendered":"

On a sub-zero night in January 2025, during a visit to Minneapolis, NME stumbles onto a band that won\u2019t remain a local secret for much longer. Called She\u2019s Green<\/a>, they have been handpicked by influential local radio station The Current to open its 20th-anniversary celebration at the legendary First Avenue. It\u2019s easily the biggest show of the band\u2019s career, supporting Pixies<\/a> frontman Frank Black<\/a> before a packed hometown crowd.<\/p>\n

On the stage that Prince<\/a> made famous, She\u2019s Green look firmly in command. Their stately, sonorous take on shoegaze casts a dreamlike spell over the room while frontwoman Zofia Smith pirouettes along the stage\u2019s outer edge. Plenty of local bands have buckled under the pressure of playing First Avenue. She\u2019s Green never so much as flinch.<\/p>\n

When NME mentions that performance over Zoom a year and a half later, guitarist Liam Armstrong smiles, barely missing a beat: \u201cYou should see us now.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s no empty boast. Since then, the band\u2019s rise has only accelerated. More than half a million monthly Spotify listeners. Tours with Blondshell<\/a>, Softcult<\/a>, Turnover<\/a> and Narrow Head. Even headline dates in China\u00a0\u2013 an invitation they initially assumed had to be fake.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we first got the email, we thought it was a scam,\u201d laughs guitarist Raines Lucas. Thankfully, curiosity won out over scepticism, resulting in some of the biggest headline shows the band have played to date. For all their recent momentum, though, She\u2019s Green is a band built on patience.<\/p>\n

Smith and Armstrong first met during the pandemic while sharing an apartment near the University of Minnesota. Yet according to Smith, their musical collaboration was far from inevitable. She had spent years writing and singing her own songs, but she had always been reluctant to share. \u201cI kept wondering, \u2018Does this suck?’\u201d she says. \u201cI just decided to keep it all to myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Call it a crippling case of imposter syndrome. In Armstrong, however, she found something of a kindred spirit. The pair bonded over a shared love of dream pop and shoegaze \u2013 Cocteau Twins and Slowdive chief among them\u00a0\u2013 and as they began writing together, Smith slowly gained the confidence to let someone else into her creative orbit. Before long, the project had a name, a full band rounded out by Lucas, bassist Teddy Nordvold, and drummer Kevin Seebeck, and a future that suddenly felt much bigger than either had imagined.<\/p>\n

Their timing proved impeccable. She\u2019s Green emerged just as shoegaze was entering another boom. Legacy acts like My Bloody Valentine<\/a> and Slowdive<\/a> are now drawing some of the biggest crowds of their careers\u00a0\u2013 years removed from their genre-defining records\u00a0\u2013 while younger bands like They Are Gutting A Body Of Water<\/a>, Julie<\/a>, and Wisp<\/a> have managed to carve out a sizeable audience of their own.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou only get one chance at your first album, and we\u2019re so much more prepared now\u201d \u2013\u00a0Liam Armstrong<\/p>\n

Unlike many of their next-gen peers, though, She\u2019s Green have resisted the temptation to put out a debut album to capitalise on the early momentum.<\/p>\n

Instead, they\u2019ve taken a far more deliberate path, releasing three EPs in as many years, culminating in the expansive 26-minute \u2018Swallowtail\u2019, which was released last week. They probably could have called it an album, and few would have questioned the decision. They simply chose to wait.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve grown so much as a band,\u201d Armstrong says. \u201cLooking back now, I\u2019m so glad we waited. You only get one chance at your first album, and we\u2019re so much more prepared now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Recorded with producer Sonny DiPerri (Julie, DIIV<\/a>), \u2018Swallowtail\u2019 feels less interested in perfecting She\u2019s Green\u2019s existing formula than testing how far they can stretch it. The biggest surprise arrives on \u2018Empty House\u2019, where the layers of reverb are stripped away, leaving Smith\u2019s unadorned vocal accompanied by a single acoustic guitar and gentle percussion that doesn\u2019t arrive until the song\u2019s half over. The result almost sounds like a live take from a BBC session, right down to the countdown in the intro.<\/p>\n

\"She'sShe\u2019s Green credit: Liam Armstrong<\/p>\n

\u201cThe original demo was definitely more She\u2019s Green-ed out,\u201d admits Armstrong. \u201cBut it was Sonny who convinced us we could do something more minimal and vulnerable. And he was absolutely right.\u201d<\/p>\n

The epic seven-minute closer \u2018Close Your Eyes\u2019 proves She\u2019s Green haven\u2019t abandoned the symphonic, squalling feedback that first won them fans. But \u2018Swallowtail\u2019\u2019s greater accomplishment is revealing they\u2019re no longer dependent on sheer volume to make their point. It cements She\u2019s Green among the most exciting young bands emerging from shoegaze\u2019s current wave while suggesting they\u2019re already charting a course well beyond the genre\u2019s familiar boundaries.<\/p>\n

As the conversation winds down, NME asks whether the band see themselves headlining the aforementioned First Avenue anytime soon. Like the subject of a debut album, it\u2019s clearly not the first time they\u2019ve fielded the question, and they\u2019re very much aware of the expectations that come with top billing at the hallowed venue, especially for a local band. But they\u2019ve also learned not to reflexively give in to the pressure. \u201cAll in good time,\u201d Lucas says with a grin. \u201cSlow and steady suits us.\u201d<\/p>\n

For now, they\u2019re just as happy playing a backyard house show, which they had done only two days before our call. \u201cAnd in Minneapolis,\u201d Armstrong laughs, \u201cthe neighbours don\u2019t call the cops [on a house show].\u201d<\/p>\n

It all tracks for a band whose career to date has unfolded almost entirely on its own terms. In an industry that rewards urgency and constant churn\u00a0\u2013 release the album, book the bigger room, chase the next milestone\u00a0\u2013 She\u2019s Green appear to be playing a much longer game, one that trusts their audience will stick with them. They may hold off a bit before headlining First Avenue, but if the past few years have established anything, it\u2019s that She\u2019s Green have become remarkably good at knowing exactly when their next step should come.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s Green\u2019s \u2018Swallowtail\u2019 EP is out now via Photo Finish Records.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On a sub-zero night in January 2025, during a visit to Minneapolis, NME stumbles onto a band that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":764024,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[88,16127,216],"class_list":["post-764023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-indie","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=764023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/764024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=764023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=764023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=764023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}