Some bands never sonically evolve beyond the era in which they began making work; beloved 90s dreampop outfit Slowdive, however, simply ceased to continue releasing music only four years after their first album, Just for a Day, dropped. (Their third, and last, was Pygmalion.)
They disbanded in 1995, and it wasn’t until 2014 that they announced they were getting back together for a reunion tour — and it wasn’t until today that they officially released new music. Perhaps because the band never got to have the slow evolution across the last two decades of making music, their newest track, “Star Roving,” sounds a bit stuck in amber — but the best kind. Slowdive’s new song is a quintessential Slowdive song, propelling you forward through thickets of pleasant, ambient fuzz.
Band members Neil Halstead, Rachel Goswell, Christian Savill, Nick Chaplin, and Simon Scott are all back together, and the band’s now been signed to a new label, Dead Oceans, with more new music seemingly incoming.
Halstead said in a statement:
When the band decided to get back together in 2014, we really wanted to make new music. It’s taken us a whole load of shows and a few false starts to get to that point, but it’s with pride and a certain trepidation we unleash ‘Star Roving.’ It’s part of a bunch of new tracks we’ve been working on and it feels as fun, and as relevant playing together now as it did when we first started. We hope folks enjoy it.
Check out the new track: