Raise

About

When <i>Raise</i> came out in September 1991, no one knew quite where to place it. On the one hand, it formed a trio of albums on Creation Records—including Slowdive’s <i>Just for a Day</i> and My Bloody Valentine’s <i>Loveless</i>—that helped define what we mean when we say “shoegaze.” (The label also put out Teenage Fanclub’s <i>Bandwagonesque</i> and Primal Scream’s <i>Screamadelica</i> in the same three-month stretch; it was a good year at Creation Record.) On the other, its rhythmic jags and sharp guitars have more to do with discordant American bands like Sonic Youth than the purple washes of shoegaze. And whereas My Bloody Valentine’s music charted the liminal spaces between conscious thought and dream, Swervedriver wrote songs about taking off in muscle cars in search of the open road—while shoegaze’s romances were internal, Swervedriver’s felt like they were out in the world. It’s telling, then, that their first shows in the US after <i>Raise</i>’s release weren’t with art band, but Soundgarden: Swervedriver sought to rock. .

via Apple Music

The Clerk says

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