Review Summary: A triumphant comeback from the dreamy UK shoegaze elders that makes us “slow dive” for more, and it’s not just from the band themselves.
As I mentioned in my very first review on this site about
Souvlaki, I began paying attention to
Slowdive with the release of their self-titled comeback album. After I dug through their discography and teared at the documentary about
Souvlaki by Pitchfork, I have to admit that I became a fan of the band and the shoegaze genre. Then, when I was ready to revisit their self-titled album (not to be confused with their self-titled EP), I was worrying whether the album will be decent or not, since most post-reunion albums by many legendary acts only turned out to be either blandly substandard or, worse, disappointingly terrible. As it turns out, the Reading band’s first album in 22 years wasn’t even poor or mediocre at all. In fact, it is a profoundly beautiful album that serves as a master class to other nu-gaze bands of how they perfected their weightless dream-pop formula effortlessly, and a statement to the music fans that they still got the bewitching magic two decades after their initial disbandment, making “decent” an underwhelming adjective to describe this album.
What makes this album so compelling, is that the band is able to produce beautiful modern sound without abandoning their routes. For example, the album still recalls their days in the 1990s, yet it also sounds like they have graced to the modern era, thanks to the engineering and mixing courtesy of
Beach House producer Chris Coady. In fact, the sugary goodness “Don’t Know Why” is a recall of the band’s early shimmering song “Shine” (from the
Holding Our Breath EP), as both of which features the beautiful cooing of vocalist Rachel Goswell and the shimmering phasing-effect-soaked guitars, except the fact that “Don’t Know Why” has a more note-y riffs and galloping drums, giving the song a dance-y feel; the raucous “Go Get It” is an echo of their early song “She Calls” (from the
Morningrise EP), as it features the wall of guitar white noise that washed with heavy doses of reverb and the muffled vocals of “I wanna see it, I wanna feel it” from both Goswell and primary songwriter Neil Halstead, yet they showcased some experimentations with quicker tempo, serving as an unlikely song to bang your head; the joyous and hopeful “Everyone Knows” is perhaps the sequel to the band’s crowning jewel “Catch The Breeze”, with the song contains the storm of reverb-heavy, endlessly delayed and distorted guitars, except the fact that these guitar storms are more evenly distributed throughout the song than the classic song. These features shows that the band knows how to catch up with time without disposing their signature sound, pleasing not just older fans, but younger music fans who are ready to “slow dive” into their catalog as well.
The band also proves that they are capable of making something new to fans as well, as they also showcased some fresh tracks such as the enchanting opener “Slomo”, the alt-rock-tinged “Star Roving” and the quiet closer “Falling Ashes”. The foggy first one is an appropriately-titled epic that recalls Halstead’s solo career as a folk singer, evident in some beautiful lyrics such as “Our lady of the shipwreck is running thru the storm”, while showcasing their creative visions by incorporating their ambient electronica influences, the clockwork drumming and luminously vaporous guitars, giving listeners that the world was in slow-motion; the adrenaline-driving second one is a surprising track for many fans, as it sounds more like a
Ride song than a Slowdive song. However, they still managed to keep their signature sonic elegance by having the guitars to soak in reverb and delay effects, the well-crafted poetic lines (If the line “Emma flies a kite, said she's feeling love for everyone tonight” doesn’t make you gasp for a moment, then I don’t know what will.) and the charming duel vocals of both Goswell and Halstead, especially with former showcased her beautiful cooing in the bridge; the eight-minute dirgeful saga “Falling Ashes” is a stark piano-led ballad that sounds like the lovechild of the heartbreaking atmosphere of
Souvlaki and the sparse ambience of
Pygmalion, in which Halstead sighs, “The night boat floats past /The years tumble down”, and repeatedly moans with Goswell, “Thinking about love”. All of these are territories that the band have never charted before, yet they still sound hazy and dreamy enough to fit perfectly into many Slowdive classics.
What makes this album more rewarding, is that the album is more song-based than their 90s works. Perhaps thanks to the fact that Halstead honed and matured his songwriting skills during the hiatus, the lyrics are much more structured than previous recordings. The mystical highlight “No Longer Making Time” has some of the best songwriting that recalls the iconic track “Alison”, as in the chorus, Halstead and Goswell sings “Kathy, don’t wait too long, we’re no longer making time. Forever we be together, we breathe, no longer for too long”, a reference to the girl Kathy from the novel
Wuthering Heights, while showcasing Halstead had a knack for creating beautiful love songs without being schmaltzy or ignorant(So now
Kate Bush isn’t the only songwriter who is inspired by the Emily Bronte novel and write a breathtaking song!); the daydreaming “Sugar For The Pill” is an exquisite portrait of an unresolved relationship, perhaps referencing the fragmented romance of Halstead and Goswell that was dissolved back in the post-Just for a Day and pre-Souvlaki era. With the cleaner vocals that recalls the atmospheric folk sound of Halstead and Goswell’s post-Slowdive project
Mojave 3, the grooving bassline and the lovely synth-like guitars painted the pitch-black night scape of loneliness some luminous streak of melancholy, all contemplating the reflective lyrics of the two vocalist’s rather unhealthy romantic relationship (“And I rolled away, said we never wanted much /Just a rollercoast’, Our love has never known the way /Sugar for the pill, You know it’s just the way things are”), flourishing this song as one brilliantly resonating breakup song. These wonderful songwriting just says that Slowdive is no longer a sound-focused band that they were back in the 1990s, and exhibited their overall growth, giving this album much more charms.
Despite all of these excellent features, that doesn’t mean this album is flawless. First of all, the album is relatively calm and monochromic than previous albums, as it did not feature the powerful dynamics as much as the band featured in their previous records. Yes, “No Longer Making Time” does have the
Pixies-like quiet-loud dynamics which is reminiscent of “When The Sun Hits” and “Star Roving” is one of the band’s most propulsive song in years, but overall the album did not bring the amount of kaleidoscopic excitement as much as prior recordings such as the noise-laden early EPs and the multifaceted jewel that is
Souvlaki, which might disappoint some older fans who are used to the beauty of the iconic album. However, as I know, stagnancy only cause harm to the artist and their fans, and Slowdive knows how to grace to the future without disposing their signatures, and create this overall vibrantly exciting art piece.
While other shoegaze contemporaries such as Ride and the precursor of the genre
The Jesus and Mary Chain made their comeback relatively substandard in the same year, Slowdive made their return in a head-turning way with this self-titled album, worthing the 22 years wait. Sure, it neither has the jaw-dropping beauty of the magnum opus
Souvlaki nor the swirling brilliance of their first three EPs that some fans wanted, and the high-speed experimentations may put off some fans, but stagnancy only hinders the artist, and Slowdive showcased their growth with these experimentations and leaped through such obstacle with this immersive album. Just like their excellent first EP, it is also self-titled, perhaps it’s an indication of the band is ready to have a new beginning, all the while serving as an unofficial and unintentional manifesto of why they are beloved as the one of the godfathers of shoegazing. Just like I mentioned in the beginning, “decent” is really an underwhelming adjective to describe this superbly vital album that is instantly ready to fit in the band’s already mesmerising catalog.
Looking back to the 1990s, the term “shoegazing” was a derogatory term by the presses (tut, tut,
Melody Maker) for the performers in the scene to stare at the ground when performing and a tag for the artists as over-privileged middle-class people, but time has vindicated the term and the artists, as well as cementing the term as a genuine sub-genre of alternative rock, with many then-critically-indifferent shoegazing records like
Just for a Day,
Souvlaki,
Lush’s
Spooky and
Split became essentials of the music, perhaps thanks to the profound influence of the bands, the return of the godfather of shoegazing
My Bloody Valentine and the release of their long-awaited third full length. However, I personally believed
Slowdive is the absolute vindication of the term, as it truly clarifies the legacy of this magnificently magical genre, with artists such as Jason Pierce’s post-Spaceman 3 project
Spiritualized, the psychedelic duo Beach House, the
23-era noise-rock trio
Blonde Redhead, the blackgaze pioneers
Alcest and the electronic-pop group (yet unfortunately short-lived)
School of Seven Bells try to replicate their majestic, angelic beauty with their own twists, while opening the door that they already opened back in the early 1990s even wider, just like a reviewer called Slowdive as “a revelation” back in their debut in 1990. If the not-so-good 2017 should be remembered in a good way, perhaps we can remember it as the year of the shoegaze comeback surge, and this astounding album is the crowning jewel to prove it, as well as being one of the best music effort that 2017 offered us.
