Wisp – “Save Me Now”

With a crown of distortion and a gaze fixed on the stars, Wisp is quickly becoming the ethereal icon Gen-Z didn’t know it needed. Described by NPR as “TikTok’s shoegaze goddess,” the Californian newcomer continues her ascent with “Save Me Now,” her heaviest, most emotionally volatile single to date—and a thunderclap of intent before her run with Deftones and System of a Down.

If her earlier work floated in a haze of dreamy melancholia, “Save Me Now” lands like a comet. Here, Wisp trades in her spectral softness for something razor-sharp: scaling guitar riffs that slice through vast cathedral reverb, while her voice—equal parts intimate whisper and wounded cry—teeters on the edge of collapse. The contrast is visceral. As she coos “save me now”, the desperation is almost medieval, conjuring knights, damsels, and sacrificial altars, all filtered through layers of distortion and reverb.

But this is no fairy tale. The song’s core is heartbreakingly modern: infatuation mistaken for love, vulnerability masked as devotion, and the search for a savior that never comes. “It’s about being infatuated with the idea of a savior that blindly leads you to making sacrifices on your wellbeing,” Wisp explains. That emotional masochism bleeds into every reverb-drenched riff, every tectonic crash of percussion.

There’s a sophistication to her songwriting that belies her breakout status. She knows when to hold back, when to let the tension simmer—and when to obliterate it. As Consequence put it, “Wisp knows exactly when to hold tension and release it,” and “Save Me Now” proves the point with every bruising crescendo.

Sonically, she draws from shoegaze’s holy canon—Whirr, Slowdive, MBV—but repurposes it into something more visceral, more accessible, yet still laced with mystique. DIY called it “scaling, sharp guitar riffs,” but that barely captures the surgical precision she wields. It’s shoegaze with teeth.

Coming off a Coachella debut and her Kilby Court performance, with Bonnaroo and a tour alongside genre titans on the horizon, Wisp is poised to break beyond the underground. She’s already notched hundreds of millions of streams, topped rock charts, and graced covers from Alt Press to Apple Music. Yet nothing about her feels overexposed—if anything, there’s a mystifying veil that persists, a self-made mythos woven into every note.

“Save Me Now” isn’t just a single—it’s a siren song for a generation drowning in feeling. Wisp doesn’t offer salvation. She offers catharsis. And in doing so, she just might be bringing shoegaze back with a vengeance.