LA-based post-punk-tinged slow-core trio Gold Cage announces debut album Social Crutch (Felte Records), which drops March 27th. It’s the band’s debut full-length album. Comprised of singer/bassist Mony Katz, singer/guitarist Cole Devine, and drummer Sage Ross, the band combines dreamy guitar loops, delicate, dueling vocals, and slow, driving tempos to create spacious arrangements that shimmer with atmospheric tones.

Warmed with tape saturation, Social Crutch is an exercise in measured minimalism, with every tone carefully sculpted to fill the vast space of each track. Shoegaze, reverb-drenched guitars evoke Galaxie 500, Yo La Tengo, and Deerhunter. Yet, Social Crutch remains very much in the present, thanks in part to the band’s ability to marry a range of influences into thoughtfully structured songs. Throughout the album, Katz’ and Devine’s equally laconic, whispery vocals elevate each song as they drift in and out of each other, sometimes softly colliding in gorgeous harmony.

Album opener “Repeater Kember” captures the band’s ethos with a decaying guitar loop that sustains and repeats for nearly all of the song, save for a heavy climax. Vocalist/bassist Mony Katz explains how the song came about. “We wrote this song while babysitting—perhaps our third or fourth song. In the beginning, we had somewhat of a Can approach to writing. Cole and I both sang on this one as we both feel the need to back up each other’s vocals to resemble the sound we want. The sounds were so indescribable and pleasing to hear—all it needed was arrangement. We never did get around to it because it happened so naturally. I like to describe it as a song that sounds as if it is disintegrating as you listen.”