I promise you: This album doesn’t sound anything like the cover art. I understand that you’re skeptical. I’m skeptical, too. But unless that cover art screams “warm, gooey shoegaze” to you, then we’re looking at a cognitive-dissonance situation.

The Richmond band Keep started out as a duo nearly a decade ago, and they gradually picked up two more members. The musicians in Keep have played in area punk bands like Slump and Black Button, but Keep’s whole sound is grand and majestic and very, very pretty. Keep definitely play shoegaze, but it’s not the fuzz-pedal headrush kind of shoegaze. Instead, Keep are more on the dream-pop side. Their sound is full of artfully layered harmonies and plummy basslines and sweeping waves of synth and guitar. It’s nice.

Keep recently released their second full-length Happy In Here. It’s the follow-up to their 2017 debut For Your Joy, and it’s really hitting for me right now. I’ve been sleeping badly lately, and this is the kind of blurry reassurance that tends to sound best when you’re not entirely in your right mind. Listen to it below.

Happy In Here is out now on Honey Suckle Sound.