The lengthier, more expansive tracks are especially inspired. The self-titled album manages to absorb elements from Slowdive’s glory days without settling into mere retread. Some tracks are perhaps too familiar: “No Longer Making Time,” with its quiet-loud dynamic, is a kissing cousin of “When the Sun Hits.” It’s a sound that’s commonly imitated, but rarely done this well. All the central ingredients of Souvlaki are present-Goswell’s ghostly vocals, the dense walls of processed guitars, an almost narcotic air of dreaminess. If anything, it sounds as though it could have been recorded in 1993. The record does not pick up where Pygmalion left off. Slowdive, the band’s first album in 22 years, is here, and it’s good in that pleasingly familiar way. What wasn’t inevitable was that we’d get another Slowdive album-or that it would be worth paying attention to. The band flamed out, perhaps prematurely, with the remaining members regrouping as Mojave 3.īy 2013, a Slowdive reunion seemed inevitable: The band members were all alive, they seemed to be on speaking terms and the return of My Bloody Valentine helped spark a resurgence of shoegaze interest from old fans and a younger generation of listeners. The band’s small discography-a trilogy of albums made for Creation Records-encapsulates the prototypical indie career arc: the commercially promising but unsatisfying debut (1991’s Just For A Day), the genre-defining classic (1993’s indelible Souvlaki) and the “difficult” follow-up (1995’s arty and underrated Pygmalion, which shares more of its genetic material with post-rock outfits like Labradford and Mogwai than their shoegaze peers). Formed in Reading, England, and centered around the interlocking vocals of Neil Halstead and Rachel Goswell, Slowdive had a knack for extracting the melancholia and heartbreak from the shoegaze aesthetic and making it glisten. You knew you there was something special left behind in their wake, but it was fleeting and hard to piece together all the details. Slowdive’s brief and wondrous ‘90s run was like a pleasant dream: hazy textures, deep emotional heft that remained fuzzy around the edges and an end that came far too quickly.
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