Customer Reviews

Just for a Day

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

My Bloody Valentine's brilliant "Loveless" is easily the most famous and acclaimed shoegazer record, but this sparkling debut from Slowdive, released the same year as MBV's masterpiece, is, in many ways, every bit as moving and beautiful. It is definitely one of my 10-15 favorite records of all-time, and I still prefer it to both "Souvlaki" and "Pygmalion," Slowdive's other two (phenomenal) albums. Written entirely by guitarist/singer Neil Halstead, "Just for a Day" stays true to its title, capturing alien ephemera within its breezy, hazy musical web. Guitars wash in and out like waves, drums and bass creep slowly along, and both Halstead and Rachel Goswell intone their beautifully insightful lyrics over the wondrously droning sea of sound. Opener "Spanish Air" is my favorite song on the album, lurching slowly like a funeral march with its martial drum beat and guitar washes until being finally punctuated by one of the best ever uses of a cello in a rock song. "Waves," "Celia's Dream," and the instrumental "Erik's Song" are my other favorites, even though almost every tune on here is a highlight and a musical world unto itself. Besides its aesthetic beauty, "Just for a Day" possesses a moving, understated emotional punch, ranging from the drearily melancholic to the overflowingly redemptive. One of my friends listened to this album incessantly in the wake of his father's death, and he says it struck a chord so deep that he can no longer listen to it without being driven to tears. Powerful, resonant, and fleeting, "Just for a Day" is an astonishing listen.

In the early 1990s Just for a Day became a cult following, sending out mellifluous dreamy dazed-out, blissed-out music, song after song in an album that spawned a new genre, sometimes called blissed-out, other times called naval-gazing or shoe-gazing. Perhaps the album's weakness, if any, is the long ponderous introduction to track one, which, unbelievably, plods too long in a monotonous fashion, so much so that a friend would not listen to the cd after being turned off by track one, only to love the album after I encouraged her to start the cd on track two, after which each song seques into the other with efforlessness and made her a fan. What makes Slowdive many fathoms better than new age or mood music is that Slowdive has melancholy, achingly beautiful melodies and soothing but never precious vocals. If you like this kind of thing, check out other blissed-out classic bands like Moose or the vintage Cocteau Twins album Victorialand. Even today some bands are carrying the Slowdive legacy such as Sway, Silver Screen (featured on Tonevendor Records),Titania, Beaumont, Lovejoy, and, as of five years ago, Blue Boy.

What a great album! Don't hesitate to get this album if you like other Slowdive, MBV, Chapterhouse, or any other 'dream-pop' band. Slowdive helped shape the genre as much as anyone and this CD (along with the Slowdive EP) shows why. Neil Halstead and Rachel Goswell's guitars positively shimmer on songs such as 'Waves' and 'Brighter'. If 'Catch the Breeze' doesn't send you on a trip, look for a different line of listening. And don't just think this is the bastard stepchild to Soulvaki. While that is a great CD as well, this one lays the foundation for everything to follow. Also check out Neil and Rachel's work as Mojave 3 for a bit of a different direction. Quite worthy as well...

Soothing. Calming. Relaxing. Quiet. Loud. Beautiful. Intelligent. Thought-provoking. Wonderful. Breathtaking. Priceless. Classic. Timeless. Must. Be. Purchased. Now. :)

I'm tired of people saying Souvlaki is better than Just for a Day. In my opinion, Just for a Day is far superior. "Waves" is perhaps one of the greatest songs to come out of the whole shoegaze/dream-pop movement. Catch the Breeze, Erik's Song, Celia's Dream, and Primal are all also very good. The distortion is shimmering and gorgeous throughout, and the songs have an emotional immediacy that I don't find on Souvlaki. That may translate into "sappiness" for other listeners, but so be it. But come on--why do we listen to dream-pop if we don't like a good degree of sappiness? That's the lifeblood of this music.

This is one of my favorite shoegaze/dream-pop albums. Also check out The Autumns--The Angel Pool, or Lush--Spooky.

I can go on for days listening to Slowdive. Whether it is this album or "Souvlaki", I could almost live off of their music. Shoegazing or not... it doesn't matter. Slowdive made some magical music, while they lasted, and their albums are pearls meant to live well beyond the time they came out. As it stands, both albums provide a dreamy framework for you to work, read or write to, or simply sit back and enjoy as you would a delicious banquet you would rather repeat over and over if you could afford it.

Neil Halstead, Rachel Goswell and company, who later re-formed under the name Mojave 3, afford us the treat of Slowdive in "Just for a Day" and their other musical masterpiece, "Souvlaki", both considered milestones of the shoegazing musical movement. Both albums are solid productions that perfectly represent the genre, and reach out to pull you in playing musical tricks, ending up comfortably in my list of essential albums.

What compels me to write a review for this album is the song "Waves." Those opening guitar chords and wash of sound is so evocative of my memories with friends at Stinson Beach in Northern California, even though these memories were a few years before I first heard this song. That is strange that a song can do that to me. I feel the sun, the 'soaring birds', the languor, and the rhythmic ocean through this song. The lyrics are so poetic- the lines 'leaving all my sins I turn away, like soaring birds, I watch my sorrow play,' gets to me every time. And then the drums kick up the beat, and it gets urgent, and the synthesizers soar up an octave, expressing so much of how we feel sometimes in that singular instance. It feels so sincere and from his heart. Those synthesizer harmonies are some of the greatest musical experiences for me. I don't understand why synthesizers aren't used like this more often, like it was in The Cure's incredible Disintegration album. I sure wish Slowdive could have made more albums, although I like Mojave 3 just as much. And then the next song, Brighter, chimes in those beginning notes and Rachel Goswell sustains those ethereal high harmonies that seem slightly out of tune. The other song I have to mention is Catch the Breeze. Turn up the volume at the end and the guitars reverb into oblivion, and you just get lost in them. It seems most people like Souvlaki more than Just for a Day, but I prefer this one slightly more. Thanks Neil, Rachel, and co.

The early 1990s was the time a new musical genre was born: blissed out, also known as naval gazing and shoe gazing, sobriquets that did little to help the popularity of a new underground dream pop. Yet a cult following ensued with Slowdive's Just for a Day being pretty much the quintessential blissed out album, too good, with its slow beautiful melodies, to be denigrated with a term like new age but the music is such a snail's crawl that it does sort of leave you dazed and, as the genre suggests, blissed out. In spite of an overly long intro on track one, the rest of the album seques from one song into the other effortlessly and makes this a classic blissed out album. The genre still lives in small circles. If you like this kind of stuff, check out Victorialand by the Cocteau Twins and the newer bands like Titania, Sway, and Silver Screen. The latter band has a single out on the Tonevendor label, a compilation of various bands, called All I Have, which is one of the most beautiful Slow Dive-like songs around.

When it comes to Slowdive, fans are generally irrevocably split between giving the "Best of Artist" nod to this album or the following effort 'Souvlaki'.

I would contend that the sophomore album is a more polished work but that 'Just for a Day' captures the essence and energy of a young band finding its way - and the results are frequently delightful.

Washes of guitar seem to ebb and flow throughout the tracks, rising to magnificent crescendos and fading to nebulous atmospherics. The tracks "Celia's Dream" and "Primal" build in pulsating waves to dramatic conclusions, while there is a much lighter touch given to "Ballad of Sister Sue", "Erik's Song" and "The Sadman".

This album puts the dream into dream-pop. It is a more ethereal and less hard-edged work than contempories from My Bloody Valentine and friends. Think blissed-out, dreamy, surging, peaceful with only occasional bursts of (superb) sonic violence.

Certainly one of my favorite albums of all, containing two of my favorite songs in the shoegazer/dream-pop genre - the aforementioned "Primal" and "Celia's Dream".

Sublime album that should remain a seminal part of the essential shoegazer collection.

I saw that "Just For A Day" only had 4 stars, which is a crime. Slowdive is my favorite band of all-time, and I love every single piece of recorded material that I've been able to get my hands on. It wasn't until I had heard all of their releases, a lot of their unreleased work and several live bootlegs that I decided they were my absolute favorite. Even their 4-track home recordings are amazing!

JFAD was released in September, 1991. All band members were 21 years old or younger! Even on this early release Slowdive exhibits a melancholic maturity that is rare at that age. This album has an incredibly soft and beautiful sound that is like no other album. The songs are refreshingly good and work well with the waves of reverb and delay. So many people will say that artists that use a lot of reverb and delay are using it to cloud their lack of talent. I've even heard some artists admit to using it that way. Guess what?! Not everybody uses it that way! Slowdive was brave enough to go completely overboard with effects and stumbled upon an amazing sound that they fully took advantage of. Neil Halstead's brilliant songwriting and Rachel Goswell's angelic voice carry this sound to even new heights.

If you're into sad and beautiful, you need to buy this album. You also need to buy Souvlaki and Pygmalion. "Souvlaki" remains one of the most awe-inspiring albums of all time. It's pop influence should have carried Slowdive much farther than it did, mainly due to extremely poor publicity and funding thanks to Creation and SBK Records. Pygmalion is their final release and is a masterpiece in experimental ambient music. Unfortunately, Slowdive was dropped shortly after it's release. Pygmalion is difficult to come by. ...