Everything is Alive

The return of Slowdive in the 2010s could have been sustained entirely by nostalgia, but Everything Is Alive makes that proposition increasingly difficult. Their fifth studio album sounds unmistakably like Slowdive while remaining interested in movement: synthesisers glow beneath guitars, rhythms become more pronounced, and the band’s famous haze is repeatedly broken by clear melodic shapes. Six years after their self-titled comeback album, they were no longer proving that a reunion could work. They were simply making another Slowdive record.

The sessions began in September 2020 after plans to start earlier that year were disrupted by the pandemic. The period also brought personal loss, with Rachel Goswell’s mother and Simon Scott’s father both dying. Neil Halstead, who produced the album, described the music as a form of escape from darkness and said the tunes became lighter when the band played together. That contrast matters. Everything Is Alive can sound luminous without being carefree, its beauty carrying an awareness of the circumstances around it.

“Kisses” is perhaps the clearest expression of the album’s forward motion, with a steady pulse under guitars that shimmer rather than swamp the song. “Skin in the Game” is murkier and more inward, while “The Slab” gives the record a heavier physical presence. “Alife” sits somewhere between those poles, balancing atmosphere with a firm melodic centre. The production does not attempt to recreate a 1990s shoegaze mix by rote. Electronic textures and cleaner spaces let familiar guitar treatments take on different proportions.

The album reached the top ten in several countries, including the UK, and received strong critical acclaim. More interestingly, it demonstrates why Slowdive’s second life has lasted. Their essential sound was never only about effects pedals or volume; it was about the relationship between blur and melody, distance and intimacy. Everything Is Alive keeps adjusting those ratios. A first listen may register the wash of sound, but subsequent plays reveal how carefully the songs are shaped underneath it. The haze is still there. The point is that there is far more happening inside it.