For those unfamiliar with Sungaze, this emerging six-piece outfit are from the city of Cincinnati in Ohio. Their sound has particularly impressed us this week, and we’re quite excited to be sharing their new single with you.
‘I’m No Longer Afraid of Heights’ is a beautifully atmospheric emo song that fuses alternative rock with dreamy pop and shoegaze. The production is sonically complex, evolving in intensity as the track progresses. It’s powerful, moving, and almost cinematic in its tone.
Lyrically, the song looks at our hopes and aspirations as children, and how they eventually begin to conflict with the realities of adulthood. Elaborating on the single’s accompanying music video, lead vocalist Ivory Snow says:
“It was important to us to film the video in the real life settings that inspired it. We filmed over the course of three days. Day one was mostly spent working with our kid actors, and filming the office-attire scenes. Day two was filming the outdoor performance and narrator scenes which involved sneaking into a gravel pit yard and walking the streets of the small town where I grew up. The corner store in the video is the very same that is mentioned in the first verse. The third day was the live show, which was shot at Madison Live in Covington, KY, across the river from Cincinnati. To get the slow motion effect, we had to perform the song at 2x speed, which made for a humorous experience. I think we were all thankful that we play relatively slow music.”
‘I’m No Longer Afraid of Heights’ is taken from the band’s album of the same name, which is scheduled for release on 22 May 2026 – preorder here.
Sungaze | Ones To Watch Playlist