Better than Loveless. Just kidding. But Souvlaki deserves its reputation as one of the best shoegaze albums. Good shoegaze albums are really hard to find while shoegaze is a plentiful genre, so whether that’s saying a lot or a little I don’t know, but Souvlaki is an essential alternative rock album so maybe that says more.

There’s a thing with shoegaze and dream pop, where a lot of bands write really basic songs and then it becomes a contest of who can come up with the prettiest reverb and sound effects. While that is an important part of what makes shoegaze and dream pop their respective genres, you have to put in more effort than that. There’s things underneath the wash of noise, and many bands forget that.

Bands like My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive and a few others (but usually only for a short time) realize that and employ the noise to complement the simple song structures and sometimes bring in some tricks. Synthesizers, acoustic guitars, it’s there if you look hard enough. But they can be easy to miss because all the instruments are made to blend into each other as a trait of the genre. It’s easy for some people to think shoegaze is just an electric guitar through effects pedals, but the greats make it more than that.

Slowdive are at the very least unarguably the second best shoegaze band besides the obvious one. To be frank, no one gave as much of a shit about shoegaze as My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive did. Each release by the band sounds different from the others. Slowdive have an ambient techno album, some more traditional shoegaze material (Souvlaki being this for the most part, though of unusually high quality), and even a post-rock album.

In all honestly, Slowdive aren’t really similar to My Bloody Valentine in any of their releases other than the Beach Song / Take Me Down single which sounds like You Made Me Realise demos. Slowdive were pushing the boundaries of dream pop while My Bloody Valentine were pushing the boundaries of rock and the guitar in general. That’s why Slowdive don’t hesitate to ignore the guitar in favor of still making beautiful soundscapes and why they have an ambient techno and post-rock album.

This is fairly gentle stuff like most of Slowdive’s work. It isn’t ever too noisy, is always very breezy. It’s great music for when you’re staying up all night and the sun is coming up. The lyrics are mysterious like the best shoegaze and dream pop lyrics are, because whenever you pick up a random phrase it’s like it came from a place deep within you, much like how the vocals are buried in the music. It’s ambiguous and the listener chooses how to apply meaning to it because it’s not literal, my favorite kind of lyrics.

The less impressive aspects of this album in my opinion are:

While this is a top of the line shoegaze album, there is a lot that had sounded similar to it and has sounded like it since which makes it less of a really transcendental, unique experience. At least for me.

I don’t think it flows particularly well as an album. It just feels like a collection of really great songs. Lastly, there’s a lack of variety. The tempo remains slow for the entire thing and the album never breaks character. Also, fade-outs? On a shoegaze album? Now that’s just the laziest of the lazy.

The vocalists lack the personality and mystique of Kevin Shields and Bilinda Butcher. I’m willing to just consider that totally personal, but hey.

My Bloody Valentine weren’t as indebted to The Jesus and Mary Chain as Slowdive always were to Cocteau Twins. Just food for thought.

Anyone curious about rock music in general needs to give Souvlaki a try or two, and should pick up the rest of Slowdive’s discography. It’s impressive how much they change direction and remain consistent. This is a band that genuinely cared about writing good songs and making interesting music. One of the few that betrays the apathetic imagery of the shoegaze scene, and for the better. And it was these few that brought the scene to life and allowed it to live for as long as it did.