Skip to content
What’s up everybody? How are you doing out there? Are you surviving? We hope so. It’s nothing but a shit show out there currently in so many ways that we are all affected no matter where we live. Life is changing rapidly and doesn’t look like it’s slowing down on the current trajectory. Every day we seem to be assaulted with more bad news and gloom. It’s hard to keep up or keep sane on current affairs. I know my head is a mess with trying to comprehend the full scope of things. Added to my confused state of mind was our time change this weekend to summertime. I don’t know why that always fucks me up, but it does. My weekend was further enhanced by a bout of food poisoning that had me jumping out of bed in the early hours to throw up. I am not sure what caused it as I hadn’t overindulged in anything or eaten something that I haven’t had before. Not fun. But you are not reading our newsletter for tales of upset stomachs, and I only mention it to give you an idea of my mental state as I talk about the record I have been listening to this weekend.
Recently in the store we had a used copy of an EP by the English group Ride. It was one from 2018, released a year or so into the band’s reformation. It wasn’t bad, and I enjoyed a couple of tracks when Jeff and I played it in the store. I’ll be honest, as much as I love Ride, I hadn’t really paid too much attention to the records they have made since reforming. I recall buying the first of the reunion albums, called Weather Diaries, and not really connecting with it and thus stopped paying attention. A few years back they played a tour, and I didn’t get to go when they stopped off in our area. Perhaps if I had gone, I would have heard those songs live and had a better feel for them, and would have also had their subsequent two albums on my radar. That was not the case, however. Over the past ten years since reforming, the group has released three studio albums and a further two of remixes of the first album Weather Diaries and the second, This Is Not a Safe Place. Their third during this second phase of the band was released in 2024 and is titled Interplay.
I noticed our distributor had a few copies left of the two most recent records and so I ordered myself a copy of each. My first impressions of This Is Not A Safe Place were that some of the production and style were not for me and that it left me disappointed. I’m not expecting the band to sound like they did on their early EPs or on their first couple of albums when they were the poster boys of Shoegaze. I’m not even expecting them to sound like the sixties psych-influenced band they were in the second half of their initial existence. I’ll need to play this one a couple more times to get a proper feel. I certainly heard tracks and moments that I liked, but also moments that I didn’t.
One can’t expect a group to keep playing the same thing repeatedly and releasing similar-sounding records over and over again. Although some do. I respect and enjoy when artists don’t play for the crowds and follow their own path and make whatever the hell sounding records they want. In Ride’s case, there are more current Shoegaze bands who sound more like classic Ride than they do themselves, and so I can see why they don’t feel a need to revisit their past.
However, I enjoyed the album they released in 2024 called Interplay. This one was recorded during the pandemic lockdown and with a different producer. I think that the mood of the world was obviously in a very different place back then, and the songs came out informed by that state of mind we were in during that unique moment in recent history. Now, with the world in a new kind of turmoil, those songs still seem to capture moods we are currently feeling. At least, I think so. The funny thing about this record is that the group has dialed back some of the “modern” production styles of the previous two, but has still made an album that sounds more like 80s New Order than 90s Ride. Perhaps not on every song, but there were a couple where I found myself thinking about the Manchester band. Admittedly, I have been playing some New Order recently. We’ve had some of their records come through the store of late, so perhaps that’s why I readily heard the similarities. In my book, sounding like New Order isn’t a bad thing, but many have tried and haven’t been able to pull it off. Not that I think Ride was trying to.
On other songs, the band sounds more like Ride of old, and I particularly liked the song Last Night I Went Somewhere To Dream and the song that ends the album, Yesterday Is Just A Song. Those are the two that I connected with and made me glad I bought the record. The album opener, titled Peace Sign, might not have the best title and might be a bit predictable lyrics-wise, but is still a nice pop song. Possibly a little stylized for my taste, but I’ll make exceptions for artists I like. Several of my favorite bands from the 80s and 90s like Jesus And Mary Chain, Cast, and Kula Shaker to name three, have put out records in the last few years, and for the most part they have all been good and offered up some interesting and enjoyable new music. I’d say that is the case for Ride. Not reinventing the wheel, not jumping on new bandwagons, not resting on their previous laurels, but just getting on with being a band and making music that makes sense to them. In that regard, you must applaud them.
So, if you are familiar with the band and haven’t heard these newer records, I would encourage you to check them out. I don’t think you need to be a fan to enjoy them necessarily, if you have an ear for more modern pop-sounding music. I think you might be disappointed, though, if you were expecting to hear the sonic palette of Nowhere or Going Blank Again, their first two albums. There are traces of those classics for sure, but those days are several decades in the past for Ride. I was there for the first time around, and it’s been fun reconnecting with them again in 2026. If not a bit late.
Okay, that’s all from me this week. Not all that I am listening to by a long chalk. I just got my copy of the new Station Model Violence for instance. Did you get yours yet? This is going to see some turntable action chez-moi for sure. In between the disco 12” s, Latin, Jazz, Reggae, Soul, Funk, Psych, Punk and Hip-Hop records that are always fighting for needle time. Music, it’s the best, right? Cheers and see you next time - Dom