There is a hypnotizing vibe that flows through Slowdive that’s composed of continuous cycles of spare lyrical content, overlapping to run-on vocal refrains, and looping instrumental motifs. While the band members concentrate and extend some of the highlights of their past output, they’re also still willing to take stylistic risks here and there while getting to the essence of what makes their sound captivating – the majestic, incorporeal beauty of the heightened guitar radiance and diaphanously glowing keyboards shimmer that shines in the sky like the ethereal Northern Lights, Goswell’s pensively dulcet, aerial vocals that sometimes twin or twine around Halstead’s duskier, emotionally opaque vocal tone, and Halstead’s melodic, involving songwriting.įrom what can be gleaned from the lyrics, Slowdive delves into themes like the dissolution of relationships, the distance between individuals, and the transience of time, reminiscing about the immutable past, ruing the path not taken, and crestfallen over lost love, yet sure about the unbreakable bond of love, no matter the changing circumstances. The full-length is a rich distillation and refreshing reimagining of the sonics and constructs that span the band’s prior albums, from the amorphous and shining shoegaze guitar and keyboards suspension of Just For A Day’s compositions and the lush dream-pop propulsion of some numbers off Souvlaki to the minimalistic, computer-generated looping ambience of Pygmalion, and even a touch of the melancholic folk introspection of Goswell and Halstead’s music project Mojave 3. Slowdive is an album that becomes more than a sum of its individual parts. Slowdive is the splendid result of the band members’ collective past experiences and finely honed expertise “a trip down memory lane”, as Rachel Goswell puts it at Slowdive’s Bandcamp, certainly, but also a map of the journey that Goswell, Neil Halstead, Christian Savill, Nick Chaplin, and Simon Scott are taking in the spectacular now. Plenty more, actually, but let’s, for once, skip the introductory formalities about Slowdive’s history and its importance as one of the originators of the shoegaze genre and jump right into a review of Slowdive, the act’s 4th studio album, released over two decades after previous LP Pygmalion, which itself was a departure from the band’s hallmark shoegaze-based sound. What more can be written about seminal UK shoegaze giants Slowdive and the band’s resplendent and raved about return to the musical realm?
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