Premature Evaluation: Slowdive everything is alive

Everyone was coming back from the dead. In the first half of the ’10s, Slowdive joined a crowd of long-departed bands deciding to give it another go. Many of these were satisfied to tour the festival circuit, indulge fans’ nostalgia for a little victory lap and a solid paycheck, then return to the ether. Some dared to make new music, and some succeeded, though far more of them returned with albums that were inevitably pale echoes of past glories. In 2017, Slowdive did the unthinkable. They released a self-titled comeback, their first album in over 20 years, that doubled as reclamation and reboot. And against all odds, it was arguably the best collection of music they had ever released.