Review Summary: 'Upon its release, copies of the album were labelled with a sticker that read "like a mind altering substance, without the risk."' Whoever wrote that sticker should get a promotion -- this is soft as snow, but warm inside.
It's 1990. It's been a year since the last Stone Roses album, and it will be 4 more until the next one. Nirvana has yet to hit the mainstream. It's been a year since the last Jesus and Mary Chain or Cure album, and we don't even have U2's “Achtung Baby” yet. So what's to be excited about? Is there any hope for music at this moment?
Then you begin to hear of this band called
Ride. They have really loud, swirling guitars, and really soft, sleepy vocals. You look around on the charts, and there's nobody like them, except for awe-inspiring
My Bloody Valentine, but they've been out of the music scene for two years. This is completely new music. This is the next generation of “shoegazing.”
Now it's 1991. Suddenly this unknown band shows up in the charts, from Reading, England, with a few amazing EP's. This band is getting raves upon raves of critical acclaim, and after giving them a listen it's certain – there is absolutely nothing out there like this. You thought Ride was something else, but this, this is something completely different. Completely unique. Nobody has tried this before. This is Slowdive.
As loud as
The Jesus and Mary Chain, but less abrasive. As soft as Eno, but with vocals.
Just For a Day, which was released in September 1991 after a string of highly successful EP's, was warmly greeted in it's home country by the public, and by the critics with fairly mixed but positive response. 20 years later, it is generally considered to be a very good start for a band which would eventually leave a very large and unmistakable influence upon alternative music.
The sound of this record could be defined as two things: dreamy and warm. This album flows very, very well. If you come into this album expecting lots of anger and punk rage, you're in the wrong place. Slowdive was one of the first bands of the 90s to show no traceable punk influence on their music. However, although the album on a whole oozes light-as-air guitars (
Brighter) and swooning vocals (
Celia's Dream), it doesn't hesitate to delve into the darker aspects of despair, as is evident on
Spanish Air and
Primal.
The album's main strength is in it's atmosphere. Each song on this album is superb on it's own, but in the context of the album, a very strong atmosphere is formed. This is epitomized in the absolutely spell-binding
Erik's Song, named after one of Slowdive's strong influences, the classical composer
Erik Satie. Each instrumental wave seems to waft through your soul almost effortlessly.
Another great asset to the band in this particular recording is the use of two lead vocalists. Now, unlike Slowdive's later work, early on the vocals were by and large separated from each other. So, Rachel Goswell's beautiful voice would float along at the head of the pack in
Brighter and
The Sadman, while Neil Halstead would provide fairly front-and-center choruses on
Waves and
Ballad of Sister Sue. On this album, it seems to work very smoothly, but shining moments do occur more effortlessly and beautifully when the two sing together, as on
Catch the Breeze and
Primal, both of which (along with
Celia's Dream) would point in the new breathtaking direction Slowdive would take with it's next masterstroke, Souvlaki.
When it comes to lyrics, many “shoegaze” bands weren't exactly renowned for their ingenious songwriting, but for Slowdive it was different. Before this album was begun, the lead songwriter, Neil Halstead, went to university for English Literature, so this shouldn't come as much of a shock. Much of the lyrical content on Just for a Day, while swooning and breathless, seems to focus much of its energy on either love or suicide. Halstead's abstracted lyrics sometimes blur the two together, but that is certainly not a hindrance on this gem of an album. Very rarely, if ever, does anything seem out of place in context of the sounds of this album when it comes to the lyrics. Slowdive should be commended for purposefully trying to be creative with their lyrics, something many other bands of their type seemingly had no time with.
Finding negatives or missteps on this album is hard, and any such missteps are few and far between, if there at all. Perhaps the only thing I can advise on really depends on your taste in music, and your willingness to be caught and drifted away by it. If you don't like slower music, and you hate
Brian Eno (although I wonder how that is possible!), then maybe Slowdive isn't where you want to be. Aside from that, to anyone else there is little I can find too negative about this album. Perhaps only that it can get carried away by its own prettiness, but is that even a criticism?
While arguably not a masterpiece like any of their later records, Just for a Day still towers in meadows in the sun, simply floating along, with sounds like a waterfall – a great start for one of the best and most consistent bands of the 90s. Just for a Day is a great record to be cherished.
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*This review is for the 1991 version of Just for a Day. In 2005 Just for a Day was remastered and re-released with a second disc devoted to all of Slowdive's previous singles (partially compiled on the great but out-of-print
Blue Day). In this remastering, a significant difference can be heard between the original 1991 release and the remastered, cleaned-up version. The bass and drums are much clearer and everything seems to have much more life added to it, which makes the record more powerful.
For this, the original release gets a 4, but I would give the new remastered album (Disc 1) closer to a 4.5. Disc 2 of the remaster is essentially Blue Day, but even better, so that's an easy 5. Safe to say, if you can pick up this new re-release, I would highly, highly recommend it.*
