Slowdive Makes the Best Album of 2017

Slowdive - now

I know, I know.  I'm late doing this, but I can't revive my blog without letting you know what I think the Best Album of 2017 was - and that distinction belongs to Slowdive for their self-titled 4th album, their first in 22 years.

Last winter, when the album first came out, I sent a couple of clips to my buddy, Steve.  He said, "I like it.  I've never heard of them."  The truth is, I never heard of Slowdive in the '90s, either - not until my renewed interest in the shoegaze movement starting about six years ago.

So why is that?  Why had we never heard of them?  Both Steve and I prided ourselves on being up on music back then - we were young and hip.  I listened to some shoegaze back then like Catherine Wheel and Lush.  Why not Slowdive, who has since gone on to be recognized as one of the most influential of the whole genre?

A lot of it has to do with unfortunate timing.  First of all, shoegaze never took off in the United States like it did in Great Britain.  The fact that I listened to as much as I did from the scene is testament to the fact that my tastes were pretty broad and far-reaching.  In the UK, however, the scene exploded like a dazzling firework, everyone was deeply enamored with it, and, just as quickly, everyone turned on it with revulsion.  Slowdive's first album, "Just For a Day", was released in late 1991, on the down swing of things.  Slowdive, having taken their name from a Siouxsie & the Banshees song, had been around for a while, and their first album was highly anticipated by fans of that style of music.  It was met with disappointment and poor reviews.  By then, music critics were calling the music of My Bloody Valentine, and other shoegaze acts, bloated, indulgent, bombastic, artsy fartsy - "the scene that celebrates itself", they called it.

Slowdive - then

This really would be an unfair interpretation of Slowdive and their first album.  It is effervescent, languid, borrowing all the best elements of Cocteau Twins.  My favorite tracks are the opener "Spanish Air" which combines the mesh of guitars and harmonies of Neil Halstead and Rachel Goswell into something akin to a Mamas & Papas song, the scintillating "Catch the Breeze", the somber waltz called "Ballad of Sister Sue", and my favorite, "Primal", which builds up to an impalpable wall of sound, a veritable assault of the senses.

There were problems with their sophomore record, "Souvlaki", as well - a lot of it marketing issues made by the record company.  For instance, the record company kept delaying its release date in America, and it was almost a year later (1994) from the British release date.  They were weeks into their American tour without having the benefit of having an album out.  Also, the British press was abandoning shoegaze in favor for its noisier, less-cerebral cousin, Britpop, bands like Suede and Oasis.  And yet "Souvlaki" has gradually come to be known as one of the quintessential shoegaze albums, along with MBV's "Loveless".  They enlisted the assistance of avant garde composer Brian Eno, who co-wrote and played on a couple of songs, the spacey and trippy "Sing" and "Here She Comes".  Other gems include the urgent "Alison", "Machine Gun" with Goswell doing her best Elizabeth Fraser, and shoegaze staples "40 Days" and "When the Sun Hits".  The whole record is a masterpiece.

In 1995, they released their third record, "Pygmalion", which was a departure from their earlier sound.  It was more experimental and ambient, relying more on electronica, obviously influenced from their time with Brian Eno.  It consists of more atmospheric, moody arrangements with minimalistic instrumentation.  Forget "Dark Side of the Moon", "Pygmalion" is just as mind-altering and psychedelic, with lengthy explorations of music like "Rutti", "Visions of LA" and "J's Heaven".  This is a really great concept album.  Three weeks after its release, their record label dropped them.

Over the next twenty years, all of them moved onto separate projects.  Some did solo projects, and some went on to form the alt folk band, Mojave 3 on the 4AD label.  Halstead formed a musical project, Black Hearted Brother, and Goswell joined members of Mogwai to form Minor Victories (all of whom I will write about in the future).  In the interim, the shoegaze movement was reborn and Slowdive was touted as its hero.

So, now we come to 2017, and the band reunites to record "Slowdive", their first record in 22 years, and on an independent label.  The result is clear and crisp, a shoegaze album with ecxellent engineering for the new millennium.  The band runs through the spectrum - atmospheric dream clouds cushioning the vocals, both male and female, on "Slomo", guitars tuned for maximum fuzz on "Star Roving", one of the main singles, and Halstead answers Goswell's frantic keening with serenity on "Don't Know Why".  "Sugar For the Pill" shows the maturity the band has reached by molding dreaminess into awareness, like waking from a deep sleep, and "No Longer Making Time" is my favorite song, with its alternating sweet verses and exploding choruses.  I love to see how Goswell, Halstead, and Christian Savill blend their guitars to make soaring landscapes of exquisite noise.  "Falling Ashes" is an eight-minute opus, melancholic pianos and wistful voices layered by a soft breeze.  Just lovely.

Who knows what is next for the band?  But I am happy that they reunited to form this angelic collection of songs that has dominated me for the better part of the last year.  I highly recommend this band if you have never heard them.