The name of the genre is what gave me pause: "shoegaze." Not that it's stupid, even though it is (it was named after a journalist at one time long ago observed that bands of this ilk tended to gaze at their shoes while they were playing their instruments, oh lordy). It just seemed, I don't know, impenetrable to me in some way. I didn't even have any evidence to suggest that it might be. But bands like Slowdive (and My Bloody Valentine, I guess would be the other one) were purposefully avoided anyway, as something that "wasn't my thing." Or: maybe it was just on my to-do list, and Record Club accelerated that process. That's the other thing—Slowdive is known to have a "classic of the shoegaze genre," and this 2023 album ain't it. So I was also afraid that I was starting the journey all wrong, that I had a responsibility to check out the classic first, and by instead starting with the newest and relatively untested album and having that be my first major exposure to shoegaze, that maybe I'd find that my head was my ass and my ass was my head and I'd be turned off from the whole endeavor. You don't know how many times I've woken up in a sweat because members of this club's first dalliance with the Velvet Underground was fucking Loaded, and now I'm worried that maybe I'd do the same thing to myself, undercutting the weight of this entire genre because of some late-effort album from some used-to-be-cool band (one that is allegedly big on TikTok, no less, I mean, jesus fucking christ).
Then "shanty" begins and I forget about all that.
"shanty" is something, boy. Jeez. Forewarning: I am going to try and fail in describing how I feel about this thing. I think the mystery is part of the allure. How it starts with a repeating three from a heavy synth, then the repeating four from the guitar, layered on top of one another, with the roaring feedback too and the bass that starts high and drops off a clip every two measures, the drums that seem somehow out of place and yet still shuffling along and keeping everything together, that sort of electronic bleeping/blooping that sounds like it's trying to escape, the soft and centered coos from Rachel Goswell, part of the mystery being what she's saying, it sounds important, no, feels important, minus content and plus context, everything combining into this sort of wall of sound that has lived in my brain and every pore of my being for the past six days. I went in thinking that "not getting shoegaze" was going to be a problem. I emerge understanding that "not getting shoegaze" is what sets it apart and makes it important and gives it meaning. It's less that I'm listening to this shit and more like I'm haunted by it.
everything is alive is bookended by "shanty" and "the slab," a similarly powerful piece that at once feels of similar density to and completely opposite from "shanty." There is an urgency here, at the end. The drums are driving, and the guitars ring out. Both vocalists push their way to the front, Goswell and Neil Halstead, lifting the song in unison. Eventually, a foreboding bass note comes in, perhaps signaling that it is time to end this thing before it all spirals out of control. "shanty" feels like it has all the answers, but it was a feint, we know now, because here is "the slab" with a thousand more questions. What the hell are we doing here? And isn't it a bit too late to find out? Like "shanty," "the slab" is an incredible showcase on the abilities of this dumb made-up genre called "shoegaze" when everything is clicking and everything is in its place and everything is and feels alive.
I'd be lying if I said that the six songs in between these two masterpieces didn't suffer a bit by proximity. A song like "kisses" is less blackout via strangulation a more just a very pretty tune. This is where the "dream pop" of the proceedings wins. A catchy hook, atmospheric background noises creating mise-en-scène but no force. The wave of noise is what makes the best songs on here the best. There is some of it here, on "kisses" and on other songs, but it's not overwhelming. I want to be overwhelmed. Then songs like "andalucia plays" aren't good because they are too sparse, try to hard to be pretty and miss the point completely. Or something like "alife," which is excellent and catchy and has a forceful drive but, I don't know, lacks heft in some way. I told you that I was going to struggle explaining all this. I hate saying "je ne sais quoi" because I should know how to explain it at this point, but I can't. The truth is, though, that "shanty" and "the slab" just have a certain something that the other songs lack. I keep using synonyms for "weight" because that's the only way I can describe it. That's how I feel. I hear a great song and feel this weight on my chest, can physically feel the immensity of the song. I get that a couple times here on this album.
That's honestly more than most albums, so all the credit in the world to Slowdive for making it happen. I feel a little out of my element when I say that Slowdive could've easily been 30 years past their prime and yet to my ears seem like they are thriving. I feel weird writing about it because I don't know the story from a first-person perspective. I am nominally aware of 1993's Souvlaki and what that means to people and how utterly surprising it must've been to realize that Slowdive were still capable of performing at this level well into the 21st century. I am personally missing that context. Maybe that's to my detriment. Maybe I listen to "shanty" and it doesn't fucking matter. If this is some kind of epilogue or even just the next step in a long epic story, and if I'm only privy to this tail end of it this week, then so be it. My own story converges on "shanty." This is where I want to be.
GRADE: 4 pukes out of 5
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