Listening Post (5/17/11)

In the Great Shoegaze Sweepstakes of the early 1990′s, Ride were often (wrongfully) seen as second banana to My Bloody Valentine.  This is unfortunate, because I think Ride’s early EP’s and first couple full-length albums are every bit as brilliant as anything recorded by their rivals.  I suppose it’s understandable, though.  Where MBV did something truly different with album Loveless (namely, making it sound like you were listening to a pixie playing her guitar underwater), thereby staking their reputation as true innovators, Ride took that same sonic architecture and melded it to more conventional song structures.  They did all the usual shoegaze stuff – erecting huge walls of distortion and feedback and then plopping an anemic, disinterested singer who sounded like he could really use a sandwich right in front of those walls – but of all the bands that plowed this particular furrow, Ride had the sharpest melodic gifts.  Slowdive (the final band in the shoegaze Holy Trinity) were like My Bloody Valentine in that they trafficked more in mood than in proper tunes, so it really was Ride’s unabashed songcraft that set them apart from their peers.  In the end, you got a fun little paradox: bruising, distorted guitars juxtaposed against a wisp of a melody.

They’re one of my all-time favorite bands, and I think this is probably their greatest song.  It’s the centerpiece of their stellar debut album, Nowhere, and it’s called “Dreams Burn Down.”