Send "Ride " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
 Along with the 20th anniversary reissue of Ride's debut LP, Nowhere, comes a thick booklet of old photos, liner notes, and a Jim DeRogatis-penned look back on the Oxford shoegazers' near-perfect debut. Flip to page 20 and you'll find a gem: a grainy shot of the foursome sitting on a bed, shoulder-to-shoulder, each with their own reading material. Vocalist/guitarist Mark Gardener is at one end, nose-deep in a copy of the cornball self-help novella Jonathan Livingston Seagull. His bandmate, songwriting foil, and eventual nemesis Andy Bell is left of center, peeking out from behind an issue of Bunty, an old British comic written for teenage girls. Bassist Steve Queralt is engrossed in now-defunct UK pop rag Number One, while drummer Loz Colbert seems rapt by the Christopher Isherwood novel perched at his thumbs. With the exception of Gardener's book, a likely reference to Nowhere opener "Seagull", it's all very English. But at the same time, there's magic more universal to unpack from this one image. The four of them look like brothers. They look like ordinary, wise-ass kids you knew or know. They look like a band.If I asked you about My Bloody Valentine, the other most seminal shoegaze band, chances are you'd think immediately of Kevin Shields and the countless places you've heard his singular guitar vision unfurl. But while Ride are often mentioned in tandem with MBV, their footprint owes more to their songwork than their sonics, and more to the way all four members clashed and combined. They weren't visionaries or titans; they were young writers with a taste for high volumes. And they didn't situate their melodies amongst tides of effects-pedal-induced mayhem, either; they did it the other way around. Howls were there to support hooks, and the psychedelic interplay between Gardener and Bell's two guitars was far more pivotal to their mission than drapes of all-enveloping noise. But that said, Nowhere, their seismic debut full-length, found them playing with elements of the shoegaze sound as much as they ever would. While it's one of the genre's enduring moments, it's Ride's for another reason: This family of songs is their most focused....full text |
| Sputnikmusic |
| The term shoegazer is synonymous with My Bloody Valentine, and even more specifically with the album Isn�t Anything and their powerful follow-up Loveless. If one had to name the next thing that comes to mind when hearing the word shoegazer it would probably be Slowdive�s Souvlaki. The albums Loveless and Souvlaki are usually considered the two-headed monster within the genre. There is, however, a third album, released a full year before Loveless and 3 years before Souvlaki, that arguably holds a claim to the first truly great shoegazer album. Imagine a less abrasive and more laid back Loveless, and you have Ride�s Nowhere. The album begins with �Seagull", using a distorted guitar and funky bass line that is suddenly met by a wall of swirling guitars. British vocals come in after a little while singing soft and dreamy. The song is driving and reaches an incredible and loud climax about 3 minutes in as there is a powerful guitar solo. This is one of the better and more dynamic songs on the album, and is 6 minutes of bliss. �Kaleidoscope" begins with a delightful fast paced distorted guitar which is joined by frantic drumming. The vocals have a really interesting pacing to them as well. This is a very solid song. �In a Different Place" begins with a gorgeous guitar part and a simple drum beat. The part is played repeatedly for the first minute or so until the crooning vocals come in to dominate the song and the guitar part is pushed to the background for the moment. This song is a break from the harder and more distorted stuff of the first two songs. This is a real radio friendly song and a good one to start the first time Ride listener with. It has been among my favorite songs for a while. It leads into �Polar Bear" which has a trembling distorted guitar that takes the listener into a dream land. The British vocals come in and are pretty nice, but the real gem in this song is the guitar parts. All in all it is another beauty....full text |
| Allmusic |
| Nowhere seems to hold consensus as the second-best record of the shoegaze era, and with very good reason. All of the common words, phrases, and adjectives commonly used with the short-lived subgenre fit properly here, and they're all positive, every one of them. Whir, whoosh, haze, swirl, ad nauseum -- this record holds all of these elements at their most exciting and mastered. But in the end, great pop records necessitate quality songs, which Nowhere delivers throughout. Undeniably, it's Ride's zenith -- dense, tight, hypnotic. "Seagull" serves as a dynamic opener; after a couple seconds of light feedback, bassist Steve Queralt kicks in with a rubbery, elliptical line (reminiscent of a certain Beatles song), which is soon followed by Andy Bell and Mark Gardener's guitar twists and Loz Colbert's alternately gentle and punishing drumming. After the upbeat "Kaleidoscope," the record falls into a tempo lull that initially seems impenetrable and meandering. However, patience reveals a five-song suite of sorts, full of lovely instrumental passages that are punctuated with violent jabs of manic guitars. The endlessly escalating "Polar Bear" is a high point, featuring expertly placed tom rolls from Colbert. The tempo picks up for the closing "Vapour Trail," a wistful pop song with chiming background guitars galore and mournful strings to close it out. The U.S. version was bolstered significantly with the remainder of the Fall EP ("Dreams Burn Down" having reappeared earlier in the record). "Taste" is one of their finest pure pop numbers; the moody/driving "Here and Now" rates well, and the five-minute "Nowhere" is a nasty distorto-freakout. [Nowhere was remastered and reissued by Ignition U.K. in 2001. Added to the 11 tracks featured on Sire's U.S. edition are the four selections from the equally wondrous Today Forever.]...full text |
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