Slowdive
With all due respect to Cocteau Twins and Beach House, Slowdive is the crown jewel of dream pop — that alternative-rock subgenre and cousin to shoegaze, characterized by washed-out, psychedelic guitars cozying up to unintelligible yet gorgeous male-female harmonies. Many have attempted it since, but few have done it better. The Reading, U.K., ensemble — whose first run lasted from 1989 to ’95 before they re-formed in ’14 — will play The Caverns in Pelham, Tenn., on May 8 in support of their fifth LP, 2023’s Everything Is Alive.
Growing up at the turn of the 1990s in Reading, 40 miles outside London, Slowdive’s members didn’t have to work too hard for an education in rock ’n’ roll.
“We’d go into London for the biggest shows — Sonic Youth, the Pixies — but smaller bands would also come to Reading,” guitar player Christian Savill tells the Scene. “We’re 17, 18, seeing bands like My Bloody Valentine and Loop playing these tiny rooms, and that’s what shaped us. At the time, they seemed so much older, even though we were probably separated by only two or three years.”
From the moment they hit the practice room, Savill, guitarist-vocalists Rachel Goswell and Neal Halstead, bassist Nick Chaplin and drummer Simon Scott proved they could hold their own. Two high points from their early output are 1993’s sweeping, melancholic Souvlaki — which Brian Eno agreed to appear on after the band mailed him a fan letter — and its sparser, high-atmosphere 1995 follow-up Pygmalion.
Still, even the seal of approval from Creation Records (home of Primal Scream, Swervedriver and other British greats) couldn’t save the band from the vipers of the U.K. music press. It reads humorously now, but back then, quotes like a curmudgeonly Melody Maker reviewer’s quip “I’d rather drown choking in a bath full of porridge than ever listen to [Souvlaki] again” did a number on the young band’s confidence — and its sales. Once the deliberately more polarizing Pygmalion came out, remembers Savill, “Britpop was peaking, and people weren’t interested at all.”
Today, however, Slowdive’s influence can be heard everywhere both above-ground and underground, from modern faves like Australia’s Tame Impala and NYC’s DIIV to newer Nashville acts like Total Wife. In revisiting the band’s first-generation output decades later, Savill says, what stands out most — for all its wall-to-wall guitars and elaborate vocal treatments — were its simplicity, and humanity.
“We never did have a ton of gear back when we wrote these songs at 19, 20, and weren’t supreme musicians, so we kept it quite easy to play,” Savill explains. “When we got back together, not everything worked, of course — and not that we didn’t love that element of chaos — but what did … reminded us of how we went from being mates having fun to being a real band. Which is awesome.”
After Slowdive’s initial dissolution, Halstead and Goswell formed the pastoral indie-country combo Mojave 3. Love, meanwhile, brought Savill to our neck of the woods.
“I married an American and worked in a grocery store in Asheville [N.C.] for several years, where occasionally an old Slowdive fan would recognize me,” he says. “‘Is it true you were in Slowdive? Why are you collecting carts in the parking lot?’ One time [Souvlaki track] ‘Machine Gun’ came on the in-store radio while I was vacuuming the produce mats. I was thinking: ‘God, has my life come to this?’ I moved back to the U.K. in 2012. This will be our first time playing anywhere near Nashville or Chattanooga.”
Severe as rock-reunion fatigue feels these days, Slowdive’s self-titled 2017 comeback LP was astonishing. My pick from that one, the second-side standout “Go Get It,” felt like Souvlaki 2.0 — front-to-back, the eight-song set honored the band’s legacy while benefiting, naturally, from time and perspective.
Now comes Everything Is Alive, a spirited follow-up rooted in the quintet’s signature languid, delay-driven sound, highlighted by the moody instrumental “Prayer Remembered,” the slow-burning, synthpop-styled “Chained to a Cloud” and hard-driving closer “The Slab.” Over 36 minutes, it runs the gamut of emotions and sounds — alternately youthful and optimistic, heavy, dreamy and dark. In other words, it’s classic Slowdive.
“I like this one more [than Slowdive],” Savill says. “More coherent, and more complete.”
As for the live show: “What’s been noticeable lately, is the audiences getting younger,” he says. “That’s nice — they bring an enthusiasm people who’ve been to a million gigs can’t, which carries over to us.”
Tickets remained available for Wednesday’s show at press time, and the ultra-intimate choice of venue — a literal cave, with the option to camp out overnight and get weird — is just about perfect. Newcomers should start with Slowdive’s aforementioned “Go Get It,” Souvlaki’s yearning opening salvo “Alison,” its sprawling centerpiece “Souvlaki Space Station,” and Pygmalion’s long, labyrinthine opener “Rutti” — a Halstead-penned homage to late, elusive proto-post-rockers Talk Talk. Drab Majesty, Los Angeles’ heirs apparent to Depeche Mode, open the show.
