-=- SHGZ -=-
* Shoegaze * Indie * Post-Rock * Grunge * Dream Pop * Psych-Rock * Ethereal *
ARTIST..: Slowdive
ALBUM...: Slowdive
GENRE...: Indie
STYLE...: Shoegaze
YEAR....: 2017
LABEL...: Dead Oceans
ENCODER..: FLAC 1.3.1 -8 -V TRACKS..: 9
BITRATE..: 853 kbps avg SOURCE..: CD
QUALITY..: 44.1kHz/Stereo SIZE....: 322.11 MB
URL..: http://deadoceans.com/onesheet.php?cat=DOC132
- TRACKLIST
1 Slomo 6:53
2 Star Roving 5:38
3 Don't Know Why 4:36
4 Sugar For The Pill 4:30
5 Everyone Knows 4:22
6 No Longer Making Time 5:48
7 Go Get It 6:09
8 Falling Ashes 8:20
9 30th June (Japan Bonus Track) 7:25
Total Playtime: 53:41
SLOWDIVE "30TH JUNE" (JAPAN VER. BONUS TRACK) LYRICS
"30TH JUNE" BY SLOWDIVE
The most beautiful day I ever saw
With these eyes I saw the best in life
The most sensical day I had
Turning stones, turning stones over til they shone
(Dark as days, dark as days)
And you were caught in the dark
With nothing makes sense
But you were caught in the dark
Where nothing makes no sense
(Shadows down, shadows down / when I saw the light in you)
The most beautiful day I ever, ever had
With these eyes I saw the light in yours
The most sensical day I had
Turning stones, turning stones over til they shone
(Dark as days, turning stones, dark as days)
*
The best comeback album in recent memory.They somehow managed to sound
totally fresh,vital and relevant despite 22 years of absence.Welcome back
guys,we missed you.
*
Great album after 22 years, the best tracks are 6. and 7 .Outstanding
multi-layer guitars, excellent spatial production together with ingenious
compositions is the optimal idea for the success of the long awaited album.
By contrasting with the productions of other younger performers, it is clear
that there is at least a 20-year gap between them, thus the original will
always be better than the best copy made.
*
First of all, I would find it strange that any non-fan would give this album
a non-favorable review because in ways, it spans generations. But, if you are
fan of Slowdive and you give the "Slowdive" album a thumbs down, well, that's
just crazy. Frankly I'm surprised that a band can "disband" for 22 years and
then make an album as genius as this.
"Slowdive" will never get old, it documents every phase of their past, and
most of all, it brings shoegaze back to 2017. This album has my younger,
non-shoegazer friends mesmerized. It's a very good, well-produced, hazy and
distorted modern day masterpiece (yes...I said it...Masterpiece)
*
This is the best album of the year and I can't imagine another album taking
its place. It's the first Slowdive album I've listened to so I feel like I
come into this band fresh. There are moments on this album that are as good
as I've ever heard in the shoegaze genre.
*
Album of the year 2017. Slowdive is one of my absolute favorite bands of all
time, so I had high expectations for this release and was kinda afraid it
wouldn't live up to them. Thankfully, it lived up to them and more. This
album absolutely blew me away. Everything here is just perfect. Rachel and
Neil's voices are just as ethereal as they were back in the 90's. I'll also
say some of their very best work can be found on this album with "Slomo,"
"Don't Know Why," and "No Longer Making Time". This album is seriously too
good. Highly recommend it.
*
One band who've enjoyed something of a renaissance amidst the spate of recent
reunions is clearly Slowdive. Unfairly maligned and ridiculed by sections of
the music press first time around, their music has managed to achieve what
any self-respecting artist strives for: a timeless quality not only revered
by consumers and fans, but also becoming one of the most influential bands
from the past two decades in the process. Unthinkable as it may have once
seemed, the likes of Mogwai, M83 and even Deafheaven probably would not exist
in their present guises were it not for Slowdive.
Their self-imposed exile and subsequent reformation didn't just reignite
interest in their wares, it also reaffirmed the band as one of the most
innovative of their generation. A band not afraid to shamelessly channel
their own influences - My Bloody Valentine, The Cure and Siouxsie & The
Banshees (from whom they got their name) - into creating occasionally
experimental but always fulfilling pieces of textured ambience that has since
become Slowdive's trademark, if not signature sound.
So when the band got back together in 2014, initially for a handful of one
off gigs and festival appearances, it didn't take long to work out there
would be more to come in the none too distant future. Having confirmed to
Drowned In Sound in October of that year their reunion was anything but an
exercise in nostalgia, rumours of a new Slowdive album started to simmer
before rising to the surface at the turn of 2017 when 'Star Roving', their
first new material in 22 years was unleashed to an unsurprisingly
overwhelming response.
Driving in mood and anthemic in delivery, it represented arguably their most
accessible five-and-a-half minutes to date, its soaring melody and Rachel
Goswell's delightful bridge vocal owing more to popular music than any
ambient soundscape. What it also provided was something of a rallying cry to
arms from a band whose career first time round had been a constant battle for
acceptance. "Nothing left to lose, nothing left to fight" declares Neil
Halstead at the end of its second verse and he's right.
Despite Slowdive being their first long player since 1995's Pygmalion, the
band really don't have anything to prove. It was recorded throughout last
year: initially at The White House in Weston-Super-Mare where they recorded
their first demo before moving to The Courtyard in Oxford, another setting
that holds fond memories for the band first time round, having recorded all
three previous albums there while its owner Chris Hufford produced both Just
for a Day and Pygmalion. As drummer Simon Scott said when DiS spoke to him
recently, this was where the songs began to take shape and Slowdive
eventually blossomed into the distinguished creation that stands before us
today.
Bearing in mind the influence they've had on music since the last time they
were together in a studio, it shouldn't come as too much of a surprise that
Slowdive sounds exactly like the record you'd expect Slowdive to put out in
2017. Progressive yet not unduly dissimilar to what's gone before, but by the
same token anything but a rehash of former glories. Which judging by the
music Halstead, Goswell and Scott have all made in the intervening years,
would have been decidedly out of the question at any rate.
Opener 'Slomo' starts delicately, its shuffling beat reminiscent of an
ambient dance track before Halstead's otherworldly vocal takes centre stage,
joined harmoniously by Goswell as the song eclipses without ever losing
direction. Delving through Slowdive's canon, its perhaps closest in structure
to the experimental sounds that permeated Pygmalion, and while Halstead and
Christian Savill's guitars float elegantly high in the mix, there's an
electronic sheen scratching the surface. As introductions go it's quite
deceptive, as the aforementioned 'Star Roving' and equally flighty 'Don't
Know Why' follow suit. With post-punk stylings that aren't a million miles
away from Interpol's more rumbustious moments, it provides another shining
example of Slowdive's dalliance with pop while making this record and as a
result finds itself becoming an early highlight on the album.
So when recent single 'Sugar for the Pill' arrives in all its soothing glory,
it reveals another side to Slowdive's make up. Although not as immediate as
either of its predecessors here, Halstead and Savill's chiming guitar covers
the song in a radiant veneer that makes lyrics like "Lying in a bed of greed,
you know I had the strangest dream" sound all the more comfortable as a
result. Both 'Everyone Knows' and 'No Longer Making Time' return its creators
to the pop chagrin they've embraced so masterfully on Slowdive thus far.
Where the former lulls the listener into a false sense of security via its
traditional mediterranean style intro before taking flight of fancy by the
first chorus, the latter unveils another unlikely source of inspiration
towards the making of this record; Emily Brontδ's 'Wuthering Heights'. "Kathy
don't wait too long, we're no longer making time" says Halstead at the dawn
of each chorus.
As Slowdive enters its final third, both penultimate number 'Go Get It' and
closing piano driven epic 'Falling Ashes' find the band in a slightly offbeat
experimental mode. While the former's eerie ambience and opulent middle eight
crescendo draws comparisons with Sigur Ros or to a lesser extent, 'Rutti' off
their last record, in turn suggesting the wheel may have revolved full circle
over its 22 year axis. The latter's deftly constructed piano loop fitting
impeccably with the song's sentiment ("Thinking about love..."), aptly
delivered by Halstead and Goswell in sweet harmony. It's a bold closing
statement that lasts a full eight minutes, possibly hinting at Slowdive's
next musical adventure in the process. Because you can bet your bottom dollar
that after making such a grandiose and spectacular comeback as this, the wait
won't be anywhere near as long for the next installment.
A majestic return that doesn't just fill in the gaps, but points
unflinchingly towards future horizons.
*
Slowdive make a spectacular comeback with an album that looks forward, not
backward
Resurrecting a band for anything other than nostalgia's sake is a tough
thing.
As time goes by, things change. Tastes change. So, 20 odd years later, do you
still have something to say? Are you still relevant or are you here to, as
the Monty Python crew once put it, just pay off your debts?
There's nothing particularly wrong with nostalgia though, especially when it
gives fans who weren't there the first time around the chance to hear it all
first hand. Neutral Milk Hotel's run of shows in 2013 was a great opportunity
for people like me, who cottoned on to them long after their demise, to hear
the songs we love performed live by the people who made them. Ditto Pulp's
reunion and across 2011 and 2012, including a spectacular "final" show in
their hometown of Sheffield that captured everything they were about in one
night.
But when you're making new music, you need to be damn sure you've still got
some juice in the tank. Do it wrong, and your memory is somewhat tarnished.
Do it right, and it's like a second wind, opening the door to a whole new set
of fans while keeping your existing ones satisfied.
Upon returning to the spotlight, David Bowie, Sleater-Kinney and My Bloody
Valentine all made something that harked back to their golden days but that
still felt fresh and exciting. The less said about Pixies' Indie Cindy,
however, the better.
And now it's Slowdive's turn ù no mean feat given that the release of 1994's
Pygmalion was a deafening death knell that saw the British music press turn
on them with pitchforks and Creation Records dropping them a few weeks after.
Luckily, Slowdive sees the band still full of ideas.
It helps that, in their absence, shoegaze had something of a reappraisal
thanks to the likes of Beach House and M83, among many others. Slowdive
appear to have been listening and learning to how the sound has grown and
evolved over time. So rather than relying on what they knew to be "shoegaze",
a genre very firmly rooted in time and place, they've applied this newly
transformed sound to their existing skillset.
Where once they were influencing these bands, they are now being influenced
by these same bands. The master become the student. And it's paid dividends,
creating an album that is a revisionist exploration of Slowdive more than it
is a straight up revival. The sublime Souvlaki was of its era, now it's time
to let a new Slowdive shine.
It helps that the process feels a lot more collaborative than on Pygmalion,
an album mostly produced in Neil Halstead's bedroom. Incredible comeback
single "Star Roving" is the perfect example of this new Slowdive. The lush
guitars are rugged yet beautifully layered and Halstead's voice, now
noticeably deeper than his teenage self that contributed a lot to the
ethereal feel of Souvlaki, brings something totally new to the sound.
If "Star Roving" was the return we all wanted, a real sigh of relief moment,
then the likes of the soaring "No Longer Making Time" and the ghostly "Go Get
It" show that they didn't pour all their energy into that comeback single.
Dreamy opener "Slomo" takes queues from Beach House's dreamscapes, no
surprise with Beach House producer Chris Coady on board, while "Falling
Ashes" is a beautifully contemplative finale.
The only issue is that Rachel Goswell's gossamer vocals perhaps don't have
the same other-worldly quality in the higher ranges as on tracks like
"Machine Gun" or "Sing". While it's not an issue most of the time, her voice
feels particularly strained on "Don't Know Why".
Regardless, Slowdive is proof that there's no need to rely so heavily on your
heritage. Like My Bloody Valentine with m b v, they've listened and they've
learnt and they've adapted their sound for a new generation without losing
what made them names in the first place. It's a difficult tightrope to walk,
sure, but Slowdive have walked it deftly and returned with an album that
doesn't disappoint.
-=- SHGZ -=-
P.S.
** Thanks ***
*** BCC FNT IPC SSR ***
*** For Knowing Where The Music Is At ***
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* NuHS we miss you! *
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