Shoegaze legends Ride have unveiled their first new song in more than 20 years. Though the Oxford quartet released an improvised jam on their Coming Up For Air EP in 2001, the song Charm Assault is their first proper song since 1996’s Tarantuala album.
The song, resplendent with the familiar effects-laden guitars, was produced by Erol Alkan and comes from their forthcoming album, to be released on Wichita Records. It was mixed by Alan Moulder, who worked on their debut album Nowhere and produced its follow-up, Going Blank Again.
“Charm Assault is a pretty straightforward expression of frustration and disgust at the people who currently run our country,” said singer/guitarist Andy Bell. “The tour in 2015 was a good way of reminding us what we were good at in the first place and Charm Assault feels like a natural continuation from our peak. When we started writing together again we tried to imagine we’d kept on making music all this time, and this was just the latest one.”
Ahead of the band’s reunion shows, in 2015, Bell’s fellow frontman Mark Gardener told the Guardian: “I’d started to feel there was unfinished business. This feeling started to come stronger and stronger. And maybe there were certain things that triggered that, family deaths, things that make you realise that time isn’t for ever, and you don’t want to get to a certain point in your life and think: ‘Why didn’t that happen?’”
Bell told the Guardian his spur had been seeing the reunited Stone Roses: “It was just pure joy, hearing the songs I never thought I’d hear again.”
Ride have also announced a live appearance, at Glasgow’s Barrowland, on the opening night of the BBC6Music festival on 24 March, which is to be closed on 26 March by Depeche Mode headlining the same venue.
