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Ride: Going Blank Again

If the intent of reissuing Ride's first two LPs was to change the group's reputation of being the perennial runner-ups of the shoegaze era-- the human foil to the divine My Bloody Valentine, a great band rather than a legendary one-- then this campaign has been a miserable failure. Mostly because the truth wins out: "e;The Story of Going Blank Again"e; contains the following quotes from the members of Ride: "e;It's a steady work process, which is a great way to do an album,"e; "e;It was fun, it was a team effort,"e; "e;I think it was the closest together as a band we ever were. There was no tension, no conflict. Everything just seemed to work."e;

Ride didn't bankrupt Creation Records; in fact, they partied with Alan McGee. They never advanced the image of being hermetic visionaries; they had to force themselves to stop socializing with other bands. They never disappeared for years on end and would later release some universally reviled trad-rock albums that doubled as applications to open for Oasis, or in the case of Andy Bell, to be in Oasis. But on Going Blank Again, Ride managed one thing MBV never accomplished after Loveless and probably never will: facing the crippling expectations and making a tremendous follow-up record.

It might not change the narrative surrounding Ride, but hopefully it does raise the question of why Going Blank Again is assumed to be the contrarian's choice for the band's true masterpiece. Some of it is pretty understandable: Going Blank Again is a noticeably lighter affair and lacks the monolithic heft of its predecessor, which is readily apparent from their respective album art. I mean, compare the two covers, which one looks like the classic to you?  Perhaps more crucially, Going Blank Again was without a movement, the UK looking to move past shoegaze towards something more personality-driven, though it wasn't clear quite what yet.

Strange thing is, Ride could be included in that. Many lesser bands followed in Ride's wake, and "e;Leave Them All Behind"e; is as close as a mission statement that you're gonna get from a band whose lyrics are mostly nonsense. Bell and Mark Gardener's guitars somehow got even louder and it can initially register as Nowhere Plus, but it also sets the tone in how Going Blank Again would distinguish itself. "e;Seagull"e; started Nowhere with a peal of feedback and six minutes of trebly squall that only revealed its layers when played at tinnitus-inducing levels. Blessed with Alan Moulder's crystalline production, the salutation of "e;Leave Them All Behind"e; is a reverberating Hammond organ and an extremely punchy drum break from Loz Colbert, which acknowledge the two encroaching threads of influence of the band: the first of the Who, reflecting Ride's increasing stadium-readiness, the latter acknowledging the influx of hip-hop and funk breakbeats into UK rock.

It might be meant as the valedictory speech of shoegaze, but it isn't actually shoegaze at all, not in the sense where the genre's main goal was to obliterate or obscure. Every single element of "e;Leave Them All Behind"e; is voluminous, but not just in sheer loudness: It's overwhelming, not oppressive, and the sonic expanse is even more mindblowing with this remastering job. Bell and Gardener's barnstorming guitars, Steve Queralt's girder-thick bassline, and Colbert's Moon-sized drum fills all could fill canyons individually, yet never once does it sound like something other than four guys in a room, which explains why Ride was pretty much the only band of their ilk that was as good live as they were on record. That said, the inclusion of the Live at Brixton DVD is mostly notable for its stupendously dated visuals.

The band adamantly demanded "e;Leave It All Behind"e; be the lead single, and it reached No. 9 in Britain, their first Top 10 hit. This would seemingly bode well for Going Blank Again's fortunes considering the next single was the giddy, nonsensical "e;Twisterella"e;. Drawing from the same sugar-spun power-pop of labelmates Teenage Fanclub as well as the cuts from The Stone Roses equally influenced by acid and ecstasy, it was rightfully described by the band as their "e;ace card."e; Yet it was a baffling flop on the charts and Ride released no more singles from there on out. 

Shame, too, as Going Blank Again should have been able to take advantage of its depth and diversity, its main trump over Nowhere. You get Television-styled guitar interplay and Bell and Gardener's most tossed-off lyrics on "e;Not Fazed"e;. "e;Chrome Waves"e; shot for "e;Unfinished Sympathy"e;, but landed somewhere closer to Seal's "e;Crazy"e; and was all the better for it. "e;Leave Them All Behind"e; has an equally colossal bookend in "e;OX4"e;, though the addition of four bonus tracks from the Leave Them All Behind and Twisterella EPs are hardly an unwelcome appendage (particularly "e;Grasshopper"e;). And there are the goofy pop songs like "e;Twisterella"e; which arguably worked against Going Blank Again's legacy, and even the band will admit the flower-child spoof of "e;Making Judy Smile"e; isn't its best work.

Because the typical selling point of shoegaze-- there's classic pop under all that noise!-- doesn't quite explain what Ride excelled at. Speaking on the origin of "e;Mouse Trap"e;, Bell observed, "e;occasionally you discover a chord sequence that you'd be quite happy to play for two hours non-stop."e; There's about eight or so of those on Going Blank Again. Even with Ride's aim to integrate more true pop songwriting, much of Going Blank Again wisely follows the wake of the immortal "e;Vapour Trail"e;, which rode out a single gorgeous progression for nearly its entirety, its only flaw stopping at four minutes instead of eight. More and more, I think the true impact of hip-hop on Ride wasn't evident in Colbert's drum fills so much as their seeing chord progressions as rhythmic beds as much as melodic ones, the way a rapper might treat a breakbeat. As such, Ride proved to be a band that operated in largesse more than finesse: simply building on these perfect chord changes for five minutes at a time with stretched out vocal harmonies, a brief shift of a couple of bars into a minor key, erratic tempo changes toward the thrilling end of "e;Cool Your Boots"e;, bent soloing on "e;Leave Them All Behind"e;, a 12-string riff breaking up the middle of "e;Mouse Trap"e;. The pleasures of Going Blank Again are cumulative, and if you simply love the sound of guitars-- clean ones, distorted ones, overdriven Leslie amps, Les Pauls, Rickenbackers, whatever-- this is about as indulgent as it gets.

Perhaps the timing is just convenient, but Going Blank Again feels more similar to the recently reissued version of Sugar's Copper Blue than anything that's strictly identifiable as shoegaze.  It's certainly reckoning with the aftermath of Loveless and an awareness of Nevermind, if not necessarily its influence. But they're both records that feel welcome 20 years later, because while their more famed peers have influenced hundreds of pale imitators, these more approachable records feel strangely undervalued. Because really, what was the last new band to bear the influence of Sugar or Ride? Not even in strict sonic similarity, since it's hard to imagine the brassy acoustic guitars you hear on "e;Chrome Waves"e; ever coming back into vogue. But more in how there's an unfortunate void of very loud, very catchy, and very polished guitar bands that aren't ashamed of commercial ambitions.  You can learn a lot from Going Blank Again: Come up with four chords worth repeating for four minutes, hum a pretty melody, overdub the guitars, overdub them again, and make the drums even louder. It's not the stuff of legends, but we need great records, too.