I missed Shoegaze the first time around. Oh, I was old enough. I just didn’t like any of the bands I’d heard, so I have no idea why I bought Just For a Day back in my first year at Uni. I guess I’d read something in the music press about it? Though that seems unlikely seeing how hated Slowdive were at the time. But it was love at first listen. And it was almost the album that I was going to write about, but at the last moment I changed my decision to the obvious choice.
Souvlaki is the band’s best known album, and is the record that defines shoegaze along with My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless. (Despite neither album sounding anything like each other.)
Slowdive walk a fine line that many of their peers just can’t compete with. The band has a strong command of the quiet/loud dynamic, but they can actually write perfect songs that you will be singing along to. While some shoegaze bands hide a lack of tunes behind walls of noise, Souvlaki has some of the greatest 90’s indie songs ever released. Alison and 40 Days are straight up indie pop songs with a shoegaze flair and it’s safe to say that there aren’t any other bands who do this better.
When the Sun Hits is the band’s biggest streaming hit and it’s obvious why when you listen to it. It’s the big noisy song on the album, but is still rooted in the band’s lush sound (no pun intended). If there is a problem with this album, It’s that it’s much too polite, When the Sun Hits should crush. When the pedals get stomped there should be a wall of noise but just as the song leaps for the stratosphere, the song fades out, as if the band was afraid to let loose. It’s an issue that crops up in several songs, even when they go big, it’s all just a bit, nice. It’s obviously not a dealbreaker, but the album really could do with a bit of an edge. Which is a huge shame, but the live versions are everything you could hope for, they sound huge these days. (I’ve linked a live version of When the Sun Hits that’s well worth listening to. Just play it loud)
But that’s my only niggle. For me, Souvlaki is the greatest shoegaze album, because it simply has the best songs in the genre.
Watching the reappraisal of this band is one of the most heartwarming things I’ve seen. From a band who were derided to the point that it’s claimed Oasis refused to sign to Creation Records if Slowdive were signed to the label and the Main Street Preachers’ infamous vitriol “We hate Slowdive more than Hitler”, to a band who are now lauded for being the pioneers they are, while selling out venues like the Brixton Academy. It makes me so proud of people I’ll never meet and long may it last.
https://lynkify.in/song/when-the-sun-hits/niNdKC44
The ways of exile 