As the sonic threads of ‘Nightblooming’ gather and grow, brood and bind, you can’t help but await that shimmering sonic explosion, that glorious sonic release which has always been a signature move of the shoegaze sound. And just before the tension begins to feel too much, boom, there it is: sonic shards and chiming shrapnel exploding all over the listener’s conscience, both exciting and reassuring.
And perhaps that is the secret to the shoegaze genre’s success: it might move with the times, but it knows it found a near-perfect form a long time ago and so perfectly encapsulates the fresh and the familiar in equal measure.
‘Leave to Cherish’ blends the roar and rumble of the denser end of the genre’s core sound with a serene flow of dreamscape melodies; it is contrasting beauty found in the most caustic of places, justified juxtapositions, opposites that are so attractive, music birthed at the same collision point that made the likes of My Bloody Valentine so intoxicating back in the day.
Showing a more beat-driven side, ‘Ground Glass’ unexpectedly rocks, ‘Amelia Road’ wanders past in a hazy fog, melancholic, nostalgic and ephemeral and ‘Keepsake’ echoes with that sort of gothic, gazy, grandiose alt-rock embraced by The Cult as they transitioned from underground heroes to anthemic, foot-on-the-monitor superstars.
But if the shoegaze genre worked out what it was all about years ago, Cave Shine in general, and Memory Serves in particular, prove that even within those confines there is still plenty of room to be very creative.
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