Slowdive - "the slab"

Next month, Slowdive will release they second album since reuniting and today they've shared the record's third single, "the slab."

"This is the heaviest track on the record and as the name suggests we wanted it to feel like a big slab of music," said the band's Neil Halstead in a statement. "We wanted it to feel very dense." As dense as the track is, it does forgoe some of the dreamier elements of the band's poppier tunes and leans, instead, into their darker haze style with wall of sound guitar effects that hits hard with layers upon layers of reverb, it still sounds like quintessential Slowdive. You can imagine it whirling around you in a live setting and how well it would fit into their set amongst some of their other heavy moments and it comes across like a wonderful finale as it slowly fades into oblivion. It's dense, but it's as gorgeous a track as any other we've heard from the band and offers up a nice sonic shift from the previous singles and its heaviness really shines and imposes its weight in-full when played after the others. Vocals are still present on this one, but they're buried even deeper into the mix, giving this an instrumental feel where the vocals act more like another instrument rather than the prominent part of a track. This is still a Slowdive song afterall so as heavy as it is, there is still blissful energy that radiates from the ethereal glow the band conjures up and now that their reunion has lasted as long as their initial run, it seems even more apparent just how much thought and care has gone into the group and their new material since reforming. Instead of rushing back, doing a quick cash grab, and recycling the process, Slowdive has been slow and studious, assessing their magic and fine tuning their spells.

Everything Is Alive is out September 1