Review Summary: While they would forever exist within the shadow of their contemporaries, posterity would find Lush's 1994 release as a fully realized moment and a beautiful opus of shoegaze and alternative rock.
Of all the bands that chose names that they would aspire to live up to while existing within the transitory phase of grunge to alternative rock, Lush was the one that commandeered its title from the beginning. What started as a desire to enter the riot grrl scene and a shy attempt at vocalizing became their cemented style, a vibrantly distinctive female falsetto within noise-pop that intended to clash against the usual and more popular forms of alternative rock. The album itself also picks up an aroma of its grunge surroundings from that year, namely with its punk reminiscent production, and guitar distortion that is purposely turned up high enough to mask any vocal slip-ups and mask any imperfections that might occur when played live. In hindsight, Split strikes the height of the band’s distinctive styles as they were burgoening from their depths as a murky underground act into something much larger. They ultimately showcase a few of shoegazes most respectable, droning late night drive songs (Desire Lines, Never-Never, Light From a Dead Star), as well as concisely crafted and poppy alt-rock (Lovelife, Lit Up, Hypocrite), and influences ranging from punk rock (Blackout) into a near-complete capitulation to grunge (Starlust, Undertow). It isn’t quite the innovative caliber of My Bloody Valentine’s Isn’t Anything (which would predate Lush’s debut LP by nearly 2 years and forever initiate comparisons that they existed in their shadow), but it takes a feathery and much more immediately accessible lot of tracks, with appealing harmonies that are simultaneously warped by an alluring and piercing dissonance.
At times Lush is orchestrating what appears to be the precursor for a spectral haunting. Insert your own referential callback to the title of their previous album Spooky here, but the idea isn’t so far from the truth. Undertow ends with a chilling fade out and pleading cry of “Let me try to pull you free” after appearing to plead to the ether. This series of urgent noise and driving bass is used to recount a relationship turning sour and that bitter taste of being locked out of their life, while witnessing that other half as they reclusively wallow into a downward spiral in their misery. Then there is the opener that winds itself up as a musty old music box before drawing the curtains for the show to begin – a beautifully dark number with a breath of suspense. The guitars here as well as elsewhere may mislead you to relax, but the eerie violins and watery guitars betwixt feathery vocals then seeps in at a rapid rate, like a fully realized intro to a sprawling European fairy tale. All in all, things are quite dark in tone even if it isn’t immediately apparent, and not simply because of the obvious grunge influences that surrounded them at the time. There was an apparent slew of life issues that had been peppering into the songwriting and production.
More specifically, there is a distinct state of shock that courses through ones body after listening to Kiss Chase and being captured by the melody, only to eventually realize that the powdered words are actually alluding to the trauma of being molested as a child, by step-parents. The entirety of this darkly explored and impeccably crafted track is spoken from the point of view of an adult recollecting on their childhood, when they were unable to make sense of it all and had been internalizing their parent's divorce as a circumstance of their faults. Then a number of other songs regard relationships, and lamenting the problematic frays that unravel them. Desire Lines stands out as one of these, melodically stirring the soul with chant-like incantations above watery guitars and a lethargic tempo. It may be disguised as an ordinary ballad, but it is surely a snapshot of personal dread in poetic prose.
There is urgency that is lacking in their 1996 album, and an elegiac mood carried from their early EPs that is wonderfully at home with the dreamy stages here-in. Yet that distinct push to transform is apparent here, feeling as though the band was torn between desiring to create dreamy dissonance, and shedding the noise aspect of their noise pop as the final prerequisite before inevitably being picked up by the stations. But even then Lush would never embrace that optimistic sound with the noisey shoegazey they would be known for, and would fail to reach the successful heights of groups like Cocteau Twins. Instead, that influence is hinted in the bouncy vocals of Blackouts as well as crystallized into the entirety of Lovelife, a lighter and playful approach that they would ultimately dive into headfirst on that next and aptly titled album. Unfortunately, things would be cut short when drummer Chris Acland committed suicide in 1996 after finishing their next album’s tour, a tragedy that only casts a further layer of emotive density to Split and its forthright and crushing honesty.
