810 Ride - Going Blank Again (1992)

 810 Ride - Going Blank Again (1992)

Studio Album - Shoegaze




About the Act:

English Rock band from Oxford. 1988-1996, 2014-present. 6 Studio albums. Regarded as being "shoegaze", a sub-genre of alternative rock in which the live performances are non-confrontational, and the players are often looking at their feet, and characterised by ethereal vocals and big washy distorted guitar.


About the Album:

This was the band's second studio album. It sold quite well. 


My History with this Album:

None


Review:

I like porridge. The thing about porridge though is that it is all about the flavour you add. Just porridge with no flavouring is decidedly bland and unpalatable. This is porridge with no flavour, in other words I found it to be bland and unpalatable.

I think the first of those adjectives, the blandness, is deliberate, I think it is part of this shoegaze thing. The vocals are down in the mix and delivered with very little conviction. The lyrics - well I have listened to it twice and couldn't tell you what the songs are about. It had little impact on me. I preferred it when they were not singing, and there were extensive instrumental passages. These were mostly chord sequences with little over them to hold the interest. Again, I suspect that this was deliberate.  

The music is big, and full of washy guitars, by which I mean a wall of distorted guitar sound is prevalent, in the kind of loud way that has little in the way of gaps - constant sound, so that instead of being a bumpy up-and-down thing, it is a carpet. It's definitely in the realms of other British Indie bands at the time, just less interesting, or at least to me.

Did I like it? Meh, really not. I didn't hate it, it was just... not interesting. If you like 90s Indie and Alternative a lot, like Ash for example, this might be right up your street. Me, I'll move on to the next album.

5.2/10


Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/6vnwJBMzIGfh8TxAmgBQAU

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLX66jEixZe1zigetFivOVjcUmte1D5ZYi

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Going_Blank_Again



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