Shoegaze Titans Ride Reach Post-Reunion High on Interplay: Review
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The post Shoegaze Titans Ride Reach Post-Reunion High on Interplay: Review appeared first on Consequence.
There’s something to be said about ’90s shoegaze bands returning years later to release some of their strongest material to-date. My Bloody Valentine did it on M B V in 2013, Slowdive accomplished it twice with their 2017 self-titled and last year’s everything is alive, and now Ride return with their seventh album, Interplay, this week.
Like their contemporaries in the ’90s, Ride seemed to burn out a hair too soon, closing up shop in 1996. Their reunion albums (2017’s Weather Diaries and 2019’s This Is Not a Safe Place) retained some of the spark of their beloved early tunes, but Interplay doubles down on the signature Ride sound with enchantment and confidence.
Interplay conjures the image of a sun rising after a long, freezing night, perhaps a response to pandemic darkness. That sentimental air certainly made its way into Interplay’s lead single, “Peace Sign,” where vocalists Andy Bell and Mark Gardener sing in harmony, “Give me a peace sign/ Throw you hands in the air/ Give me a peace sign/ Let me know you’re there.”
The track — which might be Ride’s most openly positive– seems designed for a festival crowd, but the call for connection feels directed at each other. The quartet, comprised of Bell and Gardener on guitars and vocals, Loz Colbert on drums, and Steve Queralt on bass, physicalize the title Interplay by meeting for some of the most harmonious sounds in their discography, perhaps rivaled only by their still-remarkable 1992 sophomore album, Going Blank Again.
The frequent rushes of burning guitar brightness sometimes come at the expense of emotional release. It’s not that Bell and Gardener don’t depict these tortured themes — they just find dozens of ways to offset them with moments of shimmering beauty and peace. Gardener’s “I Can See the Wreck” is perhaps the most anguished track on the album, with drama in his vocal delivery, the thick atmosphere behind him, and the eventual full-band freakout tinting the song a gothic hue. “This is a system breakdown,” Gardener sneers, a hint of panic sneaking into his conviction.
But even in these occasional darker moments, the band find strength in each other. It’s a major reason why none of the songs on Interplay are shorter than four minutes, save for the ambient, drumless final track, “Yesterday Is Just a Song.” Ride relish in the space, and they jam on Interplay like they’re the same four kids back in the Oxford basement where it all began. In doing so, Gardener and Bell paint dozens of portraits of warmth and connection, beyond their usual interlocking guitars: “We’re all walking each other home/ We’ll be stronger then,” on “Sunrise Chaser,” “Stay free if you can/ Stay free, stay golden,” on “Stay Free.”
Now in their third post-reunion album, Ride seem less concerned with reiterating their status as shoegaze pioneers and more interested in the classic influences that brought them together in the first place. Much of the album feels directly inspired by the music of Ride’s adolescence: the colorful pinwheels of new wave, Tears for Fears, Peter Hook and New Order, the atmospheric guitar majesty of U2 and The Smiths, and the dark determination of Depeche Mode and Cocteau Twins. “Monaco” in particular is reminiscent of Ride’s new wave forebears, right down to the drum machine beneath Colbert, Gardener’s booming voice, and kaleidoscopic synths throughout.
The production is clean, but the band occasionally leave a certain rawness behind. “Monaco” features some jagged lines about financial and existential pressure, but the mix somehow prevents the song from landing as thickly as it should. But Ride still find moments of pure exhilaration, like album highlight “Portland Rocks.” The song, led by Bell, sounds like it has always existed in Ride’s catalog and yet feels deeply and refreshingly new. Along with the noisy back half of “Light in a Quiet Room,” it’s the loudest they get on the album, and it’s pure shoegaze warmth.
Perhaps it’s the revival of the genre they helped pioneer, or the clarity that comes with age. But the beauty of Interplay has been in this quartet all along, and is best summed up by a shared moment between Bell and Gardener on “Peace Sign”: As the band gears up for another anthemic chorus, the two songwriters and vocalists seem to tell each other, “Your instincts are always right.” Song after song, Interplay is the sound four people acting on one shared instinct, and it feels like sunshine beaming on skin.
Shoegaze Titans Ride Reach Post-Reunion High on Interplay: Review
Paolo Ragusa
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