Tomorrow's Shore

This is a tricky one. This recording is largely at its best when it's at it's most predictable. The first song is very much what I'd hoped "Weather Diaries" would be before I'd heard how majestically Ride met and transcended my 20 years of them. The first 2 tracks really follow the brit-pop drum styles with machinegun fills, spacy guitars, bouncy bass lines and complex harmonies. Pulsar is very familiar It's rocking it's dreamy, it's moody it's very much what one would expect on "Smile" or "Going Blank Again" with a bit of an EDM beat at times only to smash and soar into luminous dreamscapes, but as it continues it's familiarity grows. It briefly borrows the intro to "Leave Them All Behind" then basically turns into an alternate version of OX4. I like it, but it's not original. The second song "Keep it Surreal" starts like a Berlin Beatles basement nightclub, fast hard classic raw simple Britpop and somehow it flips a beat and transforms into classic "Smile" era Ride with Lo-Fi effects, It's an interesting reinterpretation of classic Ride instincts but with "commercial" sensibilities very much modern "Weather Diaries" incorporation of their changing styles. through the years. "Cold Water People" I had the hardest time getting into initially, but think it's my favorite on the EP. It's an odd downer, sort of like Pink Floyd enveloped Norwegian Wood, and this is it's premature infant filled with challenge and promise... It's clumsy as if starting half sentence in a circular bass line melody with no intro. It abruptly imposes a forlorn mood, It feels like it's building to something bright and interesting only to revert, and repeat it's clumsy dismal beginnings,.as critical listening turns into background listening,shimmery guitar dreamscapes build subtly beneath awareness, and somehow the thing you've been ignoring becomes a gorgeous lush simple yearning of wonder and potential, despite being stuck within itself. "Catch You Dreaming", hate to say it, is EDM trance hop influenced pop. The bass is way too loud to play at the same volume as the rest of the recording. It sounds very synth very drum machine, I doubt either were used, but it's pretty horrible. It's very typical of the genre, repetitive melodically and lyrically, there's interesting ambience, but no discernible guitar melody beyond noodling, and the bass could just as well be a sample, loop, or keys. No one can do what Ride does, especially with only a laptop, why a legendary live band is trying to sound like a Macintosh on a table reflecting a glow stick sucker on molly, is beyond me. Where "Weather Diaries" transcended 20+ years of expectation incorporating everything they have been and everything they could be, with a chance of real commercial and critical appeal, this feels like both an appeasement to old fans and an experiment at commercial success. I totally encourage Ride to experiment with their sound, but it needs to be Their Sound.... they don't belong in the dance club, why try?

After a long hiatus Ride comes back with a fantastic album, "The Weather Diaries", and this fantastic EP. They just picked up where they left off If you loved Ride back in the 90s, you will LOVE Ride now.

Brilliant! The lads are amazing! Proper chunes!

Awesome EP. Arrived in perfect shape.

Oxford, England’s shoegaze legends deliver four big epic swirls of subtly shimmering, trippy atmospheric pop radiance. These are songs that throb and sway with an effervescent bubbling of melodic songcraft. “Tomorrow’s Shore” revels in the beguiling beauty of sumptuously contemporary psychedelic pop. Nice.