At the risk of encouraging more disbanded groups to reform and clog up festival lineups for the next 20 years, there is a certain pleasure in hearing an originator of a genre produce the purest, boldest version of their trademark sound. Slowdive’s shoegaze influence can be heard in so many contemporary guitar groups – a fact made even sweeter given they were derided by the press and dropped by label Creation after 1995’s Pygmalion album.
Following their recent successful live comeback, their fourth album is without the self-consciousness or pastiche of other acts who attempt to resuscitate their own dead corpse. Instead, there is density and euphoria, Everyone Knows and Star Roving submerge with depth and distortion, Go Get It, meanwhile, has a luscious spaciness – the ghost of a soul ballad drifting in its undertow. Shoegaze is rarely affiliated with overwrought emotion, and yet it’s difficult not to feel moved by the expanse of the group’s oceanic comeback.
