Some albums feel designed for bright afternoons. Better Wonder feels more at home after midnight, when the day is winding down but your thoughts aren’t quite ready to follow.

Released in early 2025, Kestrels’ latest record feels like it was built for the hours when your brain refuses to cooperate and sleep seems like a distant concept. The Halifax band’s blend of shoegaze, alt-rock, and noise-pop has always carried a certain emotional weight, but this time around there’s something more focused beneath the distortion. Rather than getting lost in the haze, Better Wonder uses it as a way to explore anxiety, isolation, and those restless thoughts that tend to show up around three in the morning.

A darker shade of shoegaze

What immediately stands out is the album’s sense of control. The guitars still arrive in thick waves of fuzz and feedback, but they feel carefully shaped rather than simply stacked on top of each other. Chad Peck’s production gives the songs room to breathe, allowing melody and atmosphere to work together instead of competing for space. That balance keeps the record immersive without becoming overwhelming.

Tracks like “Lilys” introduce the album’s central themes of insomnia and self-imposed isolation. Featuring guest vocals from Alex Edkins of METZ and Weird Nightmare, the song adds another voice to the album’s late-night unease while fitting naturally into its hazy atmosphere. Songs such as “Sleepless” and “Nightlife” push even deeper into that nocturnal world, reinforcing the sense that these tracks were written for the hours when sleep feels furthest away.