Sugar for the POLL - The Shoegaze Reunion LPs + EP 2013-17

The mbv album was my greatest letdown of the decade, probably. I only gave it a few spins, though; may need to re-listen. Loved the Slowdive album from this year instantly.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

That was closer than I thought it'd be, even though I voted Slowdive.

Yo to my fellow Swervedriver voter.

Also wanted to mention that Secret Shine continue to be great in the '10s. There is Only Now is the new one. I feel like they belong in this conversation even if they don't quite match the timeline of the other bands.

Yeah, I listen to the Dreamscape compilation on Kranky and Secret Shine's Untouched far more than anything by MBV.

Yo to my fellow Swervedriver voter.

― geoffreyess, Saturday, October 14, 2017 10:23 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Hey there

Somebody said something upthread about consistency. Personally, I don't really care if an album is consistent or not as I hardly ever listen to anything as an album any more, just picking tracks or using playlists through itunes, so it's more important to me that the best tracks are really good. I would agree that the Slowdive album is the most consistent of them here*, but it doesn't really have any standout tracks for me. I don't dislike the album, but I haven't found myself desperate to listen to it - it's just quite good. Similarly with the Lush EP - it was just alright, but a bit forgettable. The Ride album is much more patchy. I liked them so much back in 1990-92 and I really wanted their new stuff to be good, but was worried it was going to be shit. On the whole, it's much more in a 'rock' direction than my taste, but it has its moments. I think Cali is a brilliant slice of Pixies-style pop, I'm happy enough to listen to Charm Assault, All I Want and Lateral Alice and White Sands is interesting (and doesn't sound like anything else they've done). Some of the rest of it is a bit rubbish or dull (definitely not a fan of Impermanence, which seems cruel as it's about the death of his father, and keep getting distracted by the "but if you've got to go, I want you to know..." bit sounding like "the men from the press said we wish you succcess, it's good to have the both of you back"). I wouldn't say I like everything on mbv, but for me Only Tomorrow and If I Am are right up there with anything else they've ever recorded and better than anything else in this poll.

*I haven't heard Swervedriver, but was never actually into them back in the day anyway

Really wish Chapterhouse had done a new one but if they really didn't want to I guess it's probably for the best. Their output is really small so it seems odd they didn't have more left to say.