![]() Later, “Go Get It” taps into the same blissed-out-yet-edgy atmospherics that made “Souvlaki Space Station” such a heady experience.īut as immediately identifiable as it may be - the group handily stands out from the many acolytes they’ve acquired over the years - Slowdive is more than a mere nostalgia trip. (Goswell in particular sounds as lovely as ever on these songs.)Įarly single “Sugar for the Pill” (which gets my vote for the album’s best song) is a gently unfolding and exquisitely sad ballad made all the more affecting by Halstead’s world-weary vocals and lyrics (“And I rolled away/Said we never wanted much… Our love has never known the way”) and a beautifully subdued climax. “Slomo” and “Don’t Know Why” pick up right where the “old school” Slowdive sound left off thanks to effortlessly golden guitar sounds and breathless vocals. ![]() Slowdive certainly contains plenty of classic shoegaze material, replete with seemingly endless layers of shimmery, effects-laden guitars, hazy male/female harmonies, and rainy day melodies. Slowdive is exactly the sort of album I’d hoped Slowdive would release after two decades of silence. But as it turns out, I needn’t have worried. I did my best to avoid any pre-album hype aside from listening to the first singles - “Star Roving” and “Sugar for the Pill” - a responsible yet unobsessive number of times. ![]() Just how kind had time been to Slowdive, I worried, especially after many of its members had been doing their own thing for so long (e.g., Halstead and Simon Scott’s solo careers, Christian Savill’s long-running Monster Movie project)? And would anything they released be able to live up to two decades’ worth of expectations? really be able to recapture the magic that made their earlier recordings such essential listens for me? Sure, they could play the classics well, but would Neil Halstead, Rachel Goswell, et al. ![]() I can’t deny I was well-disposed to loving Slowdive’s first album in twenty-two years even before I heard the whole thing. ![]()
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