SLOWDIVE

Despite how long it's been, Slowdive are back with another great album. I had confidence in this one, especially after My Bloody Valentine showed they could return in the same amount of time with an album like m b v, but I was still impressed on first listens. For this new self-titled release, Slowdive brought out a mix of old styles and new influences. Some of the tracks make me think of Cocteau Twins, while others are a blend of newer dream pop and indie acts, but all are still signature Slowdive. Overall this album sounds more mature than any of their 90's releases (as to be expected considering the time that's passed). It also has more buried vocals, which is something I really wasn't expecting. On some older Slowdive tracks such as Shine, Machine Gun, Souvlaki Space Station, etc. it's extremely hard to tell what the lyrics are, a common part of dream pop and shoegaze, while other songs like Celia's Dream, Waves, Alison, 40 Days, etc. speak loud and clear. But on this album, most of the vocals are hidden far behind the instrumentation. Words you can hear tell very personal down-to-earth stories like Don't Know Why, No Longer Making Time, and Falling Ashes, and other songs like Slomo, Star Roving, and Sugar For The Pill have strong imagery calling up shipwrecks, storms, blinking lights, kites, and gulls in the wind. I also think the drums on here are the loudest Slowdive has had on any of their 4 albums, which was an extremely good move. Slomo: This track is still blowing me away. I'm not sure what my favorite on the album would be, but this is definitely one of the best. After building up to a wonderful dreamy haze with solid drums, Neil's vocals come in and wow, whatever effect they added to make it sound bubbling and echoey was the perfect choice. His and Rachel's voice play around to the beat and that tambourine sound I seem to always love, until it hits a bright shimmering burst of sound and Rachel's voice ends with what must be the most beautiful vocals I've heard from her. Really, it's only 30 seconds at the end and then it fades out, but I could listen to that part for several more minutes. Star Roving: The first promise off this new album. I really like this one - I know that I saw a decent amount of disappointment when it first came out, but I still think the main guitar is excellent, and I love the lyrics I can actually hear ("smiling beautiful"... "Emma flies a kite".. something about "black and white, blinking light".) You can really tell how Neil's voice has changed and how well it still works. Don't Know Why: Drums. Yes. Rachel's lovely voice is back, and while the beginning is a touch awkward, when all the other instruments come in it pulls together. Then at an interlude Neil's voice comes in reminiscent of Machine Gun (son of shiva...) before it all repeats. Solid, especially those drums, did I mention that? Sugar For The Pill: When this first came out I was confused as to why it was a single, but now in the context of the album it does stand out as something pretty different from any other song Slowdive has done. The bass is solid, and you can hear the lyrics better: instead of the usual swirly effects constantly going, we see more straightforward melodic songwriting closer to the band member's post-90's-Slowdive-projects. And as such it works and adds some nice variety, not just to this album but to their catalog as a whole. Everyone Knows: I thought that you 'Don't Know Why'? Now everybody knows? Anyway, this one surprised me the second most (after Slomo): the guitar fuzz is probably the closest to something from Souvlaki and it's relatively happy and fun (by Slowdive standards). Rachel is singing so I don't need to go over how beautiful the vocals sound - the lyrics are strange though, something about "America, take me to America". They must have had a good time with this one, and I am too. I especially love that little tambourine jingle that closes it, reminding me of the ending to New Order's Broken Promise. No Longer Making Time: Had a glimpse of this one thanks to live performance videos before release, and I was first taken in by the heavy drum beat. It is here on the album and still great, but it sounds a bit more like a drum machine. The lyrics are personal: "Oh Lord I remember those days, and all those nights, when you wanted so much more." and the chorus soars. The only part that seems strange is the last 45 seconds, when you think the song is going to end, but it starts part of the beginning again. Clever play on the theme of time? I don't know why. Everybody else does apparently. Go Get It: Probably the darkest song on the album, and the closest to something from Pygmalion. This track also immediately made me think of Joy Division's I Remember Nothing. The instrumentation is nice, and the echoed voices really bring me back to the ambient/post-rock stuff they did back in the mid 90's. The chorus is powerful, I love how Neil's "I wanna see it" is followed immediately by Rachel's "I wanna feel it" reverberating with the feedback. I said earlier you can hear the big difference in Neil's voice, but you can tell even better hear during the mumbled ominous burns after it calms down. Falling Ashes: Minimalist piano, another surprise from this band. It's been mentioned several times, but that piano does sound pretty similar to Radiohead's Daydreaming. Contrary to everything I said about buried vocals I think the voices on this song were a bit too loud and I wish were more buried. The last line also seems a bit silly, but honest "Thinking about love..." It may grow on me, but this is probably my least favorite on here. I will give it time (if I can make any more). Still a nice, pretty song to end with. This album is dreamy but impressively exciting at the same time, and already starting to be memorable. It was only released today, but I've listened to it 5 times so far and haven't had a desire to skip any track to get to a better following one, which is more important for an album as a whole than I used to realize. By default it may be the worst Slowdive album when compared to the shimmering Just For a Day (I would give anything for more shoegaze that uses cello), powerful, varied Souvlaki, and maybe my favorite of them all, ambient otherworldly Pygmalion. "Worst" is not bad at all of course: this is a very worthy album in the Slowdive catalog and a huge recommendation for any fan of the band and/or shoegaze and dream pop in general. Side note: the autorip for this album was not working well. I pre-ordered the CD months ago, and saw more recently that yes, it did include the free mp3 autorip. I waited until midnight when it turned May 5th, but couldn't download it, despite how the CD had already shipped hours earlier and the digital music purchase was available to buy. I then waited until 1:00, but the autorip still didn't show up in amazon music, so I just went to sleep. In the morning I got up and went to download it, but it still wasn't there. I only got the music in the end when the CD itself arrived. I've never had this problem with autorip before, but it may have been because it was pre-ordered? I did buy through prime, not a third party seller. Oh well, it was a frustration then but I got the CD on time.

Sounding like an almost textbook display of OCD behavior, and believe me, I''m totally aware of it; I developed my own little codified system of universal ranking that I applied to order releases within shoegazing’s genre from top to bottom in terms of the overall value I assigned to them based upon the level of artistry and originality I think they display, and the sense of pleasure I get out of listening to each one, a kind of mental hand-washing tic that I’ve never quite been able to shake off. And so when I think about it, Slowdive’s self-titled recording, dropped in 2017, comes in just a cut-hair below “Souvlaki”, their sophomore effort released in 1993, and widely hailed and cited as one of the three trailblazing recordings in this genre; and for sure, both of them are nestled pretty highly on this list. This eponymous release is not only a pretty remarkable accomplishment by a band who were dormant for over two decades returning to record once again, but also a remarkable recording within its own right, that deserves attention as one of this genre’s most important to emerge within the past two decades. “Souvlaki” was heavily atmospheric, and cultivated a meditative, yearning,, gentle, diaphanous, guitar-driven, gorgeously melodic overwash of sound, somewhat more substantive in heft than the gossamer framework of their first full-length “Just For A Day”, novel, beguiling wrinkles populating each track on their sophomore outing, mining a vibe that’s definitely much more quiescent than aggressive, swelling more in amplitude than magnitude, creating immersive soundscapes that are meant to bathe and cocoon rather than propel to an explosive climax. It also had the misfortune to be released when Britpop surfaced as a powerful, emergent force within the UK’s insular, trend-frenzied, next-big-thing music scene, and the reviewers, to put it kindly, were not in an especially receptive mood, or disposed toward showing it any real degree of kindness, not even a shred. Never overcoming that ferocious, knee-jerk, spitefully reactive critical backlash from Great Britian’s savagely dogmatic, snottily elitist musical press after releasing “Souvlaki”, the band released the resolute, experimental “Pygmalion”, in 1995, a middle-finger extension that served as their swan song, going dark for the next 22 years until re-emerging in 2017 with this self-titled release, a superlative extension and refinement of the framework laid out by “Souvlaki” Sounding almost in its entirety like it’s rooted within a uniformly timeless realm that’s also universal in its reach and promoting a sense of eternal return, "SloMo”, the opening track, is as close to the apotheosis of their dreamily thoughtful sound that I think the band is capable of achieving; kicking off with the hesitant strum of a guitar linked to a chorus effect, and the subdued engagement of kick drum fading in with a pair of drumsticks gently tattooing a snare to lay out a simple, staggered, almost stuttering rhythm that’s got a primal, mesmerizing presence to it, joined by a somewhat heavily-pronounced bass line that thrums with a real sense of resonance dovetailing in behind, to be followed by another amplified guitar, plaintively-plucked and channeled though a delay pedal to wring notes that drop like sweet beads of moisture from it, all of them resolving into a slipstream through which Neal Halstead’s pensive, delay-laden vocals glide through, with Rachel Goswell’s contralto voice streaming in echo with a bewitching sense of longing through the last third of the song to its fade-out. Simply yet sensitively constructed, it promotes an overall sense of nostalgic reverie, imbued with a grownup sense of wistfulness, as if yearning for peak states of mind or emotion that can only be hesitantly recalled, but never definitively recaptured. And the next six successive tracks following behind it cultivate the same atmosphere of dreamlike enchantment, with the depth of commitment to investing in that development ratcheted down by maybe only a degree or two from second track “Star Roving” to penultimate cut “Go Get It”. Sure enough, you’ll hear the familiar quiescent/aggressive dynamic, though Slowdive’s never chased it to the degree that other bands working within the genre have. “No Time To Waste”, however, rises from a level plateau to a nearly explosive crescendo, and lead single “Star Roving” moves forward in an onrushing force with conveyor belt-like insistence. “Everyone Knows” flows with a real sense of effervescence and “Don’t Know Why” is a track that’s as soothing and languid as fingertips drawn gently across a lover’s cheek. “Sugar For the Pill” and “Go Get It” have an almost spectral presence, pensive, immersive, haunting, and lamentful. And on “S/T” there’s a substantive bottom end at play throughout the course of the entire recording, giving their sound an anchoring point that, while not exactly MIA in “Souvlaki”, is a universal thread throughout 7/8ths of this release, extinguished only because closer “Falling Ashes” is a piano-driven ballad. While “Souvlaki” might be the band’s definitive statement, “S/T” is its most polished one, not only the best shoegazing release of 2017, but ranking among the best releases of that genre, period. Just a positive, unqualified recommendation.

Chegou tudo em ordem, sem nenhum problema. Vinil funcionando perfeitamente e embalagem lindíssima, gatefold. Achei interessante o acabamento em textura de papel, mesmo dando uma impressão de fragilidade. Realmente veio o cartão de dowload digital junto. O envio da encomenda foi adiado 2 vezes, então demorou 2 meses pra chegar. Estava receosa por conta da vez que pedi um vinil e veio o álbum errado, mas dessa vez foi tudo certinho. Preço maravilhoso também, paguei 133 reais numa promoção.

Very good record. Sounds like Slowdive from 20 years ago. Short album in length but the songs are all top notch. Only disappointment was no download card even though it says it comes with one, wrapping on the outside even said it, but nothing inside.

ich habe slowdive aus den augen, besser: ohren, verloren, nachdem ich mir damals anfang der 90er jahre das grossartige debutalbum gekauft hatte. das wunderbare catch the breeze, das ich auf einer compilation entdeckte, hatte mich zum kauf verleidet...immer noch ein song, der mich bei jedem hören mitreisst. über dieses comebackalbum stolperte ich hier zufällig und aufgrund der euphorischen rezensionen landete es im einkaufskorb. slowdive hatten 2014 nach langer pause ein paar konzerte gegeben und waren vom feedback des publikums erstaunt....tatsächlich spielten sie nun vor mehr leuten als früher, das publikum feierte sie so, dass sie sich entschlossen, ein neues album aufzunehmen. jedes album von slowdive ist anders und so ist auch dieses kein aufguss von damals, wobei sie klar nach slowdive klingen. ich weiss nicht, wie oft ich es schon gehört habe, es ist einfach nur grossartig, wobei ich beim ersten hören erstmal das energetische star roving auf repeat stellte. die musik braucht einige durchgänge, bis sie im kopf voll entfaltet und dann kommt man von ihr nicht mehr los....suchtgefahr! das album ist überhaupt das wohl dynamischte der band. es ist schwer, einzelne songs herauszupicken, es gibt keinen filler und das ganze album ist auf höchstem niveau. grossartig produziert, klang slowdive eigentlich nie besser. von den ersten 3 alben ist wohl souvlaki das ähnlichste. aus der begeisterung über dieses album habe ich mir dann die ersten 3 werke der band in den 2cd versionen gekauft, die allesamt grossartig sind. slowdive ist nun nach so vielen jahren einer meiner lieblingsbands geworden, besser spät als nie!

It's good!

Super return. As good as ever.