Slowdive Has Finished Recording Their Fifth Album

Back in 2020, Rachel Goswell posted several photos on Instagram with the “#slowdivelp5″ hashtag — which instantly got fans like me all excited, especially in light of their triumphant return with 2017’s celebrated self-titled album. And then the pandemic hit.

Jump ahead three years to the present, and Neil Halstead recently confirmed that Slowdive has, indeed, finished their fifth LP. While being interviewed on the SixPack podcast about Slowdive’s history and reunion, the shoegaze genre, and the music of 1988, Halstead dropped some info concerning the new album and its recording:

Some of the reference stuff I brought in was very electronic-based because I guess that’s kind of where I’m coming from sometimes, and then it will slowly work its way back to being a sort of indie guitar thing… Sometimes I’m a bit disappointed ’cause all the keyboards and stuff will disappear and my synthwave album has just gone out the window. Which is probably a good thing. But everyone in the band… comes from a different perspective. But I think we’ve always been a bit like that and the best stuff is when we all go “That’s sounding good.” … That’s where Slowdive works best. It doesn’t really work best if I’m kinda going “No, I love this” and everyone else is going “Well, that’s a bit shit.”

No title, label, or release date has been announced for the new album. In the meantime, Slowdive will perform several concerts in Australia later this month followed by some summer shows, including Japan’s Fuji Rock festival. Tour dates and other info can be found on Slowdive’s website.

Slowdive’s various members have kept busy with other projects since their 2017 album. Christian Savill’s Beachy Head released its debut album in 2021. Rachel Goswell released an album as The Soft Cavalry with her husband, Steve Clarke in 2019 and also appeared on albums by American Football and Trentemøller. Simon Scott released numerous ambient and experimental albums on such labels as 12K and Touch. As for Halstead, he produced and performed on Mary Lattimore’s Silver Ladders and performed on albums by HOO and Moon Attendant.