Album Review: Slowdive, Everything Is Alive

Six years since their return with their self-titled fifth album (which itself came a whopping 22 years after its predecessor), shoegaze legends Slowdive are back with a monumental record that crosses into ambient and post-rock territory.

Vocalists and guitarists Rachel Goswell and Neil Halstead, guitarist Christian Savill, bassist Nick Chaplin and drummer Simon Scott began work on Everything Is Alive in autumn 2020. Halstead’s original vision was for a minimalist electronic record, but their trademark reverbed guitars could not be silenced for long, eventually seeping through into every fibre of the finished album.

The opening ‘Shanty’ is beautifully floaty and esoteric post-rock, with Goswell’s and Halstead’s almost whispered vocals just another instrument in the mix. ‘Alife’ is more immediate and insistent, tinkling synths vying for your attention with a breathy vocal, while gossamer delicate recent single ‘Kisses’ could be lifted from the golden age of shoegaze.

‘Andalucia Plays’ is built on Halstead’s confessional vocal, delivered over an aching backdrop of ululating synths and heartbeat rhythms. ‘Skin In The Game’ has similarly downbeat vocals, laid on a delicate bed of sparse but heavily reverbed guitar, while the foundations for the gorgeous instrumental ’Prayer Remembered’ are big, bruising basslines. ‘The Slab’ is all unintelligible vocals buried beneath a fugue of pulsing bass, insistent drums and slowly serrated six-strings.

Sweeping the listener up on a journey of epic soundscapes, these eight tracks are up there with anything from Slowdive’s back catalogue.

8/10

Out now, on Dead Oceans