Album Review: Ride, This Is Not A Safe Place

Ride return to the fray once again with producer and re-mixer Erol Alkan providing the electronica icing to their time-honoured shoegaze sound: layered guitars and ethereal vocals. Largely upbeat and positive - single 'Future Love' provides a good taster and finds them "drunk on morning dew."

'R.I.D.E' is a sort 'Theme From Ride', with its repetition of the band's name intoned over a hypnotic 'cathedral of sound' which owes a huge debt to those godparents of Shoegaze, My Bloody Valentine. It's not all distant swooning soundscapes though. There are enough hard edges to surprise - like finding broken glass in your sponge cake. 'Kill Switch' is portentously fuzz-drenched and 'Repetition' is a protest against stagnation while 'Clouds Of Saint Marie' sounds hopefully expectant, in a vague sort of way.

The effects pedals are momentarily ditched for a pretty interlude on 'Dial Up' with some doubt and consternation being aired as the question 'Are we living?' is posited.

It's not all blissed-out - This Is Not A Safe Place is not a '90s throwback. At times there's an unsettling feeling of waking up the morning after a bender, swearing ruefully, 'Never again'. 'In This Room' builds and soars before dissolving and disappearing into the ether.

6/10
OUT NOW via Wichita Recordings