SLOWDIVE 黑胶唱片和CD

Review: Anticipation is running high around Slowdive's long-awaited new album. Arriving six years after their self-titled comeback in 2017, the shoegaze icons' follow-up record is a true product of the times, hampered by pandemic delays and written as a reflection on significant personal losses for band members, but equally they were never going to rush something out for the sake of it. Lead singer Neil Halstead laid down some initial demos in 2020, and then when the band could come back together they worked on recordings for two years before getting to the finished product. If you love the band's swirling, dream-like sound, you won't be disappointed by lead single 'kisses' or, indeed, any of the other tracks contained within.

Review: The return of Slowdive has been one of the minor miracles of the 21st century thus far - having originally split up in a mist of disinterest and press opprobrium in the Britpop-damaged mid-'90s, the band have watched their profile and reputation slowly rise to the extent of them now being regarded as scene pioneers and innovators. True to its eponymous name, this album is the sound of these Thames Valley charmers re-asserting everything that made them magical in the first place a full quarter century on, not to mention a dizzying collision of ethereal harmonies, heavenly guitar cascades and opiated dreamstates possessed of a timeless allure.