Oh, hell yeah. “Autodidact” may be a few miles from reaching a shoegaze classic, but it’s undoubtedly a Swervedriver classic. One track into I Wasn’t Born to Lose You, and we’ve already got another essential song from this once-lost band. Something any fan thought they’d never have again.

…But it never gets any easier. I Wasn’t Born to Lose You is the kind of reunion album that starts off strong and gets you excited to fall in love with a band all over again—but stick around, and before it’s over, you’ll be brought back down to earth. The Midwestern-drifter attitude is still wholly present, so this is certifiably Swervedriver. But if you recall, Swervedriver disbanded in their weakest state with the flaccid, space rock attempts of 99th Dream. They recover some of their token tearing guitar sound, but this album often lacks the punch of Raise and Mezcal Head.

Swervedriver too frequently get bogged down in the vibe-over-songcraft ethos that threatens to destroy any shoegaze or dream pop album, and overall, I Wasn’t Born to Lose You struggles to even classify as shoegaze. The definitive “wall of sound” of the genre is barely present, and instead the riffs coast on a soft reverb that reminds of chillwave’s roots in shoegaze. Sadly, it also reminds how both of these genres became dated so quickly.

I Wasn’t Born to Lose You is an improvement over its predecessor, so it’s a successful reunion album by that metric. There’s enough competency here to prove Swervedriver always were one of the better shoegaze bands. One of the few to survive past one great album, and 17 years later, they still haven’t quite burnt out.