Slowdive ~ Kisses [2⊘23]

disturbedByVoices

May 2

Difficult to tell. Is it an admonishment or an encouragement? Is it both? In a way, an age-old question of whether we should be more critical or less demanding. What is the exact point (even near-bouts) where acceptance should take precedence over denial and does strangeness alone justify the change?

"Tell me, 'You're the best thing'
I tell you, 'That's what you need'
Rolling on those good looks
Maybe it's just enough"

Slowdive continues their second-life with their second album entitled everything is alive. Vocalist Neil Halstead brought the group some thirty electronic ideas/demos originally intended for solo release. Together, their collective decision-making would ultimately redraw the music back to the group's signature reverb-drenched guitars. "As a band, when we're all happy with it, that tends to be the stronger material," Halstead said. "We've always come from slightly different directions, and the best bits are where we all meet in the middle."

"I know you dream of snowfields
Floating high above the trees
Living for the new thing
Sometimes the new won't do"

The video features a 17-year-old Neapolitan named Charlie, who gives personal scooter rides to the people of Naples. A palpable sense of connection between the riders seemingly drives a narrative of friends, relatives, and/or lovers. There is a pervasive quality of timelessness that handily evades any more telling foundation.

"Maybe there's a car there
Driving away from here
Taking all the ghosts, the hurt
Well, everything starts anew"

Likewise, the music and lyrics -- the former emotion-laden, the latter enigmatic at best -- defy easy characterization. And therein lies the beauty of this and so many other Slowdive songs, buried in their multilayered approach to storytelling, in many ways mimicking the enigma of the human condition to the soundtrack of the human heart.

"Tell mе what you need, what's right
Whatever is just enough
Is living with thе truth, a start
Maybe it's just enough"

Shoegaze like many other musical genres was once thought to be only a fad. A soon-to-be fading alternative sound that would in actuality eventually have elements integrated into other genres, while continuing to reinvent itself to this day. It is this enduring quality of Slowdive that continues to do what music does best, by touching us and seductively promising us that whatever we decide, everything is ultimately, beautifully ephemeral.

"Kisses
born desert sun"