![]() ![]() The backlash against them, and by default, the shoegaze movement they were part of - dubbed “the scene that celebrates itself” because of the friendships between the bands - was one that proves that as fickle as critical tides can be, they can also be reversed. ![]() “The first was really derivative, there was a My Bloody Valentine track, a Sonic Youth track, and a Primitives track. So warmly has Slowdive’s return been received it’s ironic that the first time around, after initially gushing reviews, the music press moved from praise to scorn in the bat of an eyelid. ![]() This isn’t how the script for reforming bands is meant to be played out, who typically either play their back catalogues live or release records that confirm the law of diminishing returns. Over the eight songs of their fourth record Slowdive there’s a vibrancy and an urgency that makes it sound like a fully-formed debut album rather than a comeback. Time spent in their company reveals them to be both unfailingly polite and significantly, in the way they talk about their new music, on anything but a nostalgia trip. Slowdive are making music again, brilliantly so in fact. Instead of calling it a day in their early years, Slowdive’s story sees them artistically revitalised over the two decades since their last album, the underrated Pygmalion. It’s a tale that isn’t steeped in the rock and roll star cool of a Lou Reed or an Alex Chilton, rather it’s a different kind of strut, one where the music is the star. Slowdive - singers and guitarists Rachel Goswell and Neil Halstead, drummer Simon Scott, guitarist Christian Savill, and bassist Nick Chaplin - have a similarly redemptive story. But they became key influences for countless bands that discovered the delights and inventiveness of records like Radio City and White Light/White Heat years after they were released. One just has to look at Big Star and The Velvet Underground, neither of whom reaped the fruits of fame in their heyday. Musical history is strewn with artists that didn’t get their deserved plaudits until long after splitting up. ![]()
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