Unlike some of their contemporaries, Slowdive avoided jumping aboard the Britpop bandwagon by quietly breaking up instead. Some of the members would go onto form the alt.country Mazzy Star-inspired outfit Mojave 3, the antithesis of the prevalent laddishness of bands such as Oasis and Blur.
As a style of music, shoegaze has had something of a revival in recent years thanks to labels such as Dais Records, and this has been noted in underground and metal circles in the works of bands such as Chrome Waves, Alcest and Deafheaven. The landscape and the time was right for Slowdive to reunite and put out new music, finally returning to welcome open arms in 2017, and now their fifth album overall, Everything Is Alive (Dead Oceans) is upon us.
According to vocalist / guitarist Neil Halstead, the band had originally conceived of Everything Is Alive as “a more minimal electronic record”, and with early track “Shanty” there is evidence of this in the song’s eighties electronic futurist vibes. The presence of reverb-drenched swirls of guitar noise demonstrates that they haven’t completely abandoned their core sound, a stunning opening to the record.
The blissful instrumental “Prayer Remembered” feels like a perfect homage to the family members lost to Rachel Goswell and Simon Scott; there is a transcendental quality to the track, an exploration and meditation on death that feels reflective as opposed to morbid. The kind of direction Pink Floyd could have explored in later years had they continued together, it also taps into Siouxsie and the Banshees at their most haunting and psychedelic.
“Alife” takes you back to the heyday of The Cocteau Twins and The Cure, yet manages to feel stunningly contemporary and a band forging ahead and acquiring itself a whole new generation of fans. “Andalucia Plays” is dream-pop ambient loveliness, and I put it to the band that should David Lynch make another series of Twin Peaks, then please please, offer him up this track, it will prove the perfect accompaniment.
“Kisses” is a little surprising, a comparatively straightforward and direct sounding slice of alternative pop-rock with charming almost lackadaisical vocals that makes for an effective number all the same, while “Skin in the Game” highlights why I love shoegaze so much, what with its breathy vocals, introspective lyrics, emotive themes and all-round ethereal loveliness. The track may be typical Slowdive fare, but is particularly strong.
“Chained to a Cloud” again seems to draw from minimalist electronica; in some ways it’s a little reminiscent to what they were going for on Pygmalion making this perhaps the album’s most progressive piece and one which might take a couple of listens to get the full measure of. “The Slab” enraptures with its density, harkening back to the band’s past and tracks such as “Catch the Breeze” and “Souvlaki Space Station”. You may have encountered the phrase saving the best till last and that’s exactly what the band have done here.
Some bands reunite and fail to recapture the glories of yesteryear (see Pixies), but that isn’t the case here. Once again Slowdive illustrate why they are held in such high esteem and how deserving they are of all the plaudits. Legends never die, they just keep getting better.
Buy the album here:
https://slowdive.bandcamp.com/album/everything-is-alive
9 / 10
REZA MILLS