Slowdive are one of the biggest shoegaze bands, shoegaze being a genre dominated by an overreliance on guitar pedals to create a dreamy rock atmosphere. I've briefly discussed Slowdive on this blog, but it didn't go beyond a quick comment on one song before moving on, but that alone wouldn't give their music justice.
Note to reader, I am not discussing their albums after their reunion, specifically the self-titled album and everything is alive, because I'd rather stick to their first three albums.
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| Slowdive's 90s albums |
I bought a collection of their 90s albums, and the blurb at the back was rather funny; it hyphenates "shoe-gaze" and emphasises that Brian Eno played on two of their songs; whilst he did on Souvlaki, it's reductive of the band themselves; they didn't even mention the wonderful songwriting abilites of Neil Halstead, the vocals by Rachel Goswell, or the rest of the band.
Unfortunately, Slowdive committed the sin of being a shoegaze band, just as Britpop was getting big. "I hate Slowdive more than Hitler", said Richey Edwards of the Manic Street Preachers, for instance. Still, you can't trust reviewers and critics. Compare then to now, where Slowdive are arguably the best known shoegaze band, and beloved by younger listeners, which is more deserved for a band of their quality.
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| Just For a Day album cover |
Just For a Day, their debut album, is as dreamy as the band get - even the album cover is quite impressionist, and I couldn't tell that was a dancer initially. Spanish Air is a stunning opener, with pummelling drums amidst a hazy guitar backdrop, Halstead and Goswell's vocals buried in the oneiric music. It's reminiscent of Cocteau Twins, as is large swathes of the album, with more melancholic dream pop than roaring guitars present.
The Ballad of Sister Sue is a plaintive, brooding track which blooms into a cathartic chorus, and Erik's Song combines guitar reverb with some piano. However, the second half, with Waves and Brighter especially, is more standout, with both tracks having a lusher, more tremendous sound. Primal in particular foreshadows where their sound will go next, with slightly heavier guitars. Throughout the album, Simon Scott's drumming stands out, and Goswell's singing is gorgeous, especially in tracks like the Sadman.
I will admit this is my least favourite album out of the three, mainly because there aren't really any standout songs, and all the tracks blend into one dreamscape. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but across an entire album, it does become rather one note. For a debut, it's a great album, though can easily be overlooked in 1991 when you consider fellow shoegazers My Bloody Valentine released the titanic Loveless that same year.
I find Souvlaki unintentionally hilarious, since the album title comes from a comedy skit, and on its own is merely a Greek dish - coupled with the music, there's an odd juxtaposition between them. The album itself is a tremendous step up from Just For a Day, however: the music isn't exclusively a thick shoegaze blanket; the songwriting is more adventurous, with heavier guitar lines and a greater variety of genres. |
| Souvlaki album cover |
At times, the album sounds like it's by a different band - less Cocteaus, more alt rock - which gives the unintentional effect of making Just For a Day sound even more dated than it is. The songs are stronger and more distinct: Alison, with its hazy, psychedelic feel ending with a lovely guitar solo; Machine Gun has Goswell and Halstead alternating verses, and blends their past sound with soaring guitar feedback; 40 Days has "dreamlike guitar [which] blends perfectly with some beautiful static". And all are back to back - truly a fantastic opening to a record.
I enjoy Slowdive far more at their heaviest, particularly Souvlaki Space Station, which embraces both an echoey bliss and shimmering guitars, before ending with a guitar decaying into a spacy, digital nothingness. When the Sun Hits is a more conventional song, though has wonderful crashing guitars which make it a perfect anthem for the wistful.
Yet there's a more laidback side to Slowdive too, with Here She Comes and Dagger both sticking out - they're more acoustic tracks, focusing on Halstead's vocals and guitar, and the latter especially makes for a pleasant closer to a brilliant album. Sing, a spaced out ballad with Goswell singing amidst an ambient backdrop, also tones down the wall of sound so loved in shoegaze, and it's these three songs which best show where the band would go next.
The album is comforting yet pensive, and I reckon listening to it at full volume whilst watching a starlit sky is probably how the album is best heard. Slowdive managed to improve their sound significantly in just two years, and Souvlaki is rightly seen as their peak - here, they sharpened a hazy warm glow, and moved beyond merely heavy reverb.
This is Slowdive at their coldest, most vulnerable; it's more Talk Talk reminiscent than shoegaze, though there are still effect-treated guitars, so whilst it's not as soaring as Souvlaki was, it's more like skeletal shoegaze. Even the album art has foreign-looking notation filling up the white space, and the band name is now in Helvetica. There was also a member change - Simon Scott had left, and now Ian McCutcheon was on drums. |
| Pygmalion album cover |
The album was the brainchild of Halstead - he took inspiration from artists like Seefeel and Aphex Twin, and he wrote the whole album, aside from Goswell penning two sets of lyrics. There is a clear influence from Mark Hollis, too - most of the tracks are filled with silence, and when there's instrumentation, they don't build up to a climax - rather, they peter out. Take Rutti, the album opener - ten minutes long, but the first three minutes are taken up by sparse guitar notes, and cryptic singing by Halstead. When the drums and bass come in, they're soft and merely add to the texture. There is slight rhythm from the bass, admittedly, but otherwise there's no reason to foot-tap. And once ten minutes are up, the track stops.
Crazy for You is the same musical idea - guitar motif with Halstead singing "crazy for loving you" - looped, and it works, mainly due to the ambience, although six minutes may have been overkill. Ditto Miranda, Trellisaze, and J's Heaven, which are also tracks which place a guitar loop at the forefront and don't go elsewhere. At times, it feels like that's what the recording process literally was.
Not that the songs are disappointing - Trellisaze does have a lovely reverb-heavy outro, and Miranda have lovely vocals from Goswell which suit Pygmalion far better than Halstead's vocals, mainly as her singing is more out there than Halstead's. And J's Heaven does sound like heaven at times.
Blue Skied An' Clear is a highlight from the album, and takes a few cues from I Believe In You - it's the lushest song on the album, and even has a chorus - and Goswell's vocalisations are beautifully haunting. If Halstead wrote more songs like Blue Skied, I think the album would have been more enjoyable whilst not detracting from its ambience, it really is that stunning.
Perhaps ironically, I quite like the shorter interludes more than some of the longer pieces - Cello especially is haunting, almost like a distorted hymn, and who doesn't want to hear Slowdive go drone? Visions of LA is another Goswell piece, and it's a charming folk song which does sit at odds amongst the electronic songs so far.
Yet the positives are also where Pygmalion falls. To give a comparison, Talk Talk's albums work really well with the sparseness because of all the different instruments involved, which makes the tracks feel alive despite their ambience. Aside from some cello, Slowdive focus on guitar, bass and drums, which makes the music more limited in scope and thus numbs the overall effect. Yet I applaud Slowdive for making something ambitious - it's not the greatest post-rock or ambient record, but it's a very fine one indeed. (And listen to the Pygmalion demos, which are also fantastic and could have easily made up another album.)
Sadly, Slowdive couldn't get to tour Pygmalion - their label, Creation Records, got rid of them instead, but even post-reunion they hardly play anything from the record - only Crazy for You really gets a look in, which is a shame. And so, already effectively Halstead's project, Slowdive broke up and no one really cared.
The aftermath
Halstead, Goswell and McCutcheon went on to form Mojave 3, a more country-flared band which I've not yet given a proper go; if you're keen, you have five albums to look forward to. However, Slowdive's appeal must have clearly grown since 1995, since the collection I bought dates back to 2012. Come 2014, the original lineup had reunited, and they've released two records, even performed at Glastonbury. They've reverted back to dream pop, with a greater emphasis on pop now, though they still have great rocking songs - I particularly like Star Roving and The Slab. And that's not to mention a thriving younger audience, which has made Slowdive the defining shoegaze band to many.
Perhaps poetically, Slowdive are better remembered than all the NME journalists, and how suiting is that?
Souvlaki 🤗
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