Slowdive

Dealing in thick, static layers of guitar fog and faint, dreamy harmonies, Slowdive was part of the first wave of shoegaze bands who made a cacophonous, sprawling wall of meditative noise and offered an alternative to the British grunge scene of the early 1990s. Led by childhood friends Rachel Goswell and Neil Halstead, Slowdive formed in Reading, Berkshire, in 1989, and signed with iconic indie label Creation when its members were just 19 years old. Named after a Siouxsie and the Banshees single, Slowdive quickly earned comparisons to contemporaries like The Jesus and Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine. The band's debut album, Just a Day, was awash with effects pedals and hypnotic, graceful ambience, but it was the angelic, swirling pop music of Slowdive's follow-up, Souvlaki (1993), that earned its reputation as a cult classic. With the emergence of Brit-pop and problems with the band's American label SBK, Slowdive came to a natural end after 1995's Pygmalion, and Halstead and Goswell went on to form the more acoustic, indie-Americana act Mojave 3. Both also released solo material. They reformed in 2014 for a world tour and a series of festival dates, before releasing a new album, the self-titled Slowdive, in 2017. The album charted at number 16 in the UK and number 50 in the US, making career-high chart placements for the band in both countries. Slowdive reached another chart peak in 2023 with the band's fifth album, Everything Is Alive, which climbed to number 6 in the UK and also reached the Top 10 in Belgium, Germany, New Zealand, and the Netherlands.