Review Summary: "It's alright, we're altogether"
It’s amazing that Slowdive weren’t appreciated during their time. Despite existing in the heyday of the Shoegaze revolution that emerged in the late 80s, championed by bands like The Jesus and Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine, and, to a certain extent, Dinosaur Jr. and Sonic Youth, Slowdive just couldn’t catch a break. Even more confusing is how quickly their fan base deteriorated. After garnering a hefty following after the release of their celebrated eponymous EP and second EP,
Morningrise, in 1990 and February 1991, respectively, their first album,
Just For a Day, received lukewarm reception, with critics and fans dismissing Slowdive as a flash in the pan amidst a plethora of other bands fighting for their 15 minutes.
After being rebuked by their record label, Creation, in early 1992, Neil Halstead and the band were given complete creative freedom to do what they want, stemming from the record company’s indifference more so than their gratuity. Halstead, detached and depressed due to band’s commercial failure and compounded by a messy break up with bandmate Rachel Goswell, retreated to a cottage in Whales to try to channel his isolation into new songs. What he came back with after those two weeks were rough sketches for ’40 Days’ and ‘When the Sun Hits’, two tracks which would wind up on
Souvlaki.
The band, excited and reenergized from Halstead’s new creative output, reentered the studio and began working on an album that embodied everything the band was feeling at the time– failure, regret, resentment, but also acceptance, resilience, and hope.
While
Souvlaki is able to successfully combine Pop sensibilities and melodies with Shoegaze instrumentals, it isn’t the album’s greatest strength, nor is it entirely unique– bands like Ride were fusing loud reverb-drenched guitars and catchy hooks a year before, while The Jesus and Mary Chain were doing it four or five years before them. Instead,
Souvlaki’s greatest strength lies in the clarity and poignancy of its lyricism. The bookends illustrate a mini quasi-cinematic tale about the duality of relationships; ‘Alison’ exemplifies the honeymoon phase, where both participants are happy together and optimistic about their future, while the album’s morose and sparse acoustic closer, ‘Dagger’, reveals the pathos associated with breaking up and realizing teenage love is ephemeral.
Souvlaki manages to avoid one of the major tropes of Shoegaze by highlighting the individual layers of the songs, rather than stacking them one on top of another until a wall of sound is achieved that is so dense that most of the song’s other attributes are drowned beneath it.
Souvlaki is crisp, clear, and balanced. Even when the music drifts toward “classic” Shoegaze territory, such as the thick, space-rock/dub-influenced ‘Souvlaki Space Station’ or the blissful cascade of ‘When the Sun Hits’, Halstead and the group have an extremely keen knack for letting each instrument ring separately; you don’t have to listen closely to hear Nick Chaplin’s Pixies-esque bass line in the former or Simon Scott’s pulsating and steady rhythmic foundation in the later.
The whole band performs on
Souvlaki at their peak. Where before, it could have been argued that Goswell’s voice was lost (or at the very least, obscured) behind the other members of the band (see ‘Ballad of Sister Sue’ and ‘Brighter’ from their debut), it is undeniable that on here, it is clear and at the forefront. She reaches otherworldly heights throughout the album, floating above the songs more like an angel than a ghost, exulting more than howling, and takes songs like the previously mentioned ‘Souvlaki Space Station’ as well as early highlight ‘Machine Gun’ to astronomic levels.
Souvlaki is an emotionally opaque record. It is hard to decipher by the end of the album whether we’re supposed to be hopeful or hopeless, yet we certainly know that both of those sentiments are apparent in different magnitudes throughout.
But maybe that’s okay. Maybe it takes more than one listen to truly figure out Halstead underneath all the ambivalence; hell, maybe it takes a hundred listens. And I will listen again and again, opening my ears as much as my heart each and every time until this aural enigma is solved– or at least until it becomes clearer. Because ultimately, that is what
Souvlaki craves from us. An extensive immersion– a slow dive.
