Customer Reviews

Nowhere

5 star:		(39)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

One of the best of the genre. They achieve a great balance of power and beauty. This is still a collection of great melodic tunes, and like MBV it's all hypnotic.

The guitars roar and scream. The drumming is aggressive like bonham. Laurence (Loz) is a very underrated drummer. And over this whirlwind are vocals and harmonies that are often beautiful. The overall alchemy of zeppelin, floyd, stone roses, MBV (same producer), Jesus & Mary Chain, Smiths, the La's...it's just hypnotic.


1. Seagull - starts out- little hi-hat, feedback, shuffly bass, like they are just settling in to start to play- then watch out! Amazing drumming, icy, crashing, psychadelic guitars.
2. Kaliedescope - Syd Barrett with tribal drums and guitars that sound like shattering glass.
3. In a Different Place - a little slower. Nice song. Believe me, you need a come down here from the preceding intensity.
4. Polar Bear - Great use of the Johnny Marr "How soon is now" volume pedal: then artfully taken up a notch. Beautiful acoustic guitar stomp toward the end. Beautiful and full of building tension.
5. Dreams Burn Down - Downright violent! Opens w/ "Levee Breaks" drumming. Compressed cymbals. Chiming guitars...up to the Icy-screechy-shattering Glass howling guitar sound explosion.
6. Decay - Grinding guitars, galloping bass, great drum breaks.
7. Paralysed - another beautiful song.
8. Vapour Trails - Mad-chester beat, bouncy chiming guitars with enjoyable cello. ends nicely on just the cello.
9. Taste - Upbeat, poppy. Extremely enjoyable. Beautiful vocal arrangement, with some forlorn bittersweet lyrics.
10. Here and Now - La's-like guitar, great beat. A little harmonica blending in well. Catchy chorus.
11. Nowhere - a little more free-form then the rest. an acquired taste. worth getting to know. aptly titled. adds another dimension to the record.

DON'T OVERLOOK THIS MASTERPIECE!!!!!
It's debatable, but if you are just getting into this music, then please check out what I feel are the Trinity of Shoe-Gazeing. Primary colors: RED/BLUE/YELLOW
BLUE: Ride "Nowhere"
RED: My Bloody Valentine's "Loveless"
YELLOW: Catherine Wheel "Ferment"

This is probably Ride's best album. I picked up this album when I learned that this guy named Andy Bell had joined Oasis on bass, was an accomplished songwriter (which means that Oasis now has two songwriters) and had played in a band called Ride. So I went to the local music store and bought "Nowhere". Immediatly I was grabed by the disk.

Ride's sound is what they call shoegazing but compared to the shoegazing kings, My Bloody Valentine, Ride's music is more melodic, direct and not as disorienting. There also does not seem to be much of an etheral sound in Ride's music that came to be embraced by many shoegazer bands. Instead Ride added their own flourish of psychedelia to their music. This makes Ride's music is a bit more accesiable than the Valtine's sound. "Nowhere" is also probably very melodic due to the fact that Andy Bell used a 12 string Rickenbacker on this album which gives the album sound a bit of a jangly edge along with plenty of wah-wah effects and distortion. Anybody with a passing interest in shoegazing I definitly would recommend picking up this album. Highlights include "Seagull", "Paralysed", "Dreams Burn Down" , "Vapor Trail" and "Nowhere".

I was lucky enough to see Ride live in Atlanta at the Cotton Club, circa 93'. They were promoting Going Blank Again, and quite frankly, if you were lucky enough to see the glory that was briefly Ride you are a comrade in music history. I love the Brit scene, especially back in the days of the early 90's, and I'll say this, if you love the roses, you'll love this album. Ride, the Charlatans, and the Stone Roses, bring back nothing but good memories for me, and this album (Nowhere) is always better than most. Get it. That's it. Just get it... the guitars alone are worth the 10 bucks, and you'll wonder what you ever did without it on a rainy night. I just can't send this one high enough on the all time must have's list.

With this record Ride reached their creative peak. My high-school friends were so in love with this album that they grew bitterly disappointed with the band's later, cheesier efforts. On "Nowhere", the band creates a unified aesthetic, pulling the best elements of psychedelia, heavy rock and British pop into something that's none of those things, something beautiful. The guitar sound is huge, churning, atmospheric bliss, lots of effects and noise used to create an organic wall of sound. The rhythm section plays big, simple, clean grooves. But the vocals are the master stroke: elementary, pretty melodies and harmonies, sung rather blandly. The singing fades back into the mix, another instrument with lyrics to sketch out a story. Perfect for car trips, rainy days, or waking up late.

At first listen, this album seemed simply good to average in my mind. Then, I found myself listening to this disc unfailingly for three straight days as the rush of spacey guitars and foggy vocals slowly burned their way into my psyche. While the album begins with the fairly straight-ahead "Seagull," the rest of the tunes shimmy into a cascade of entrancing sound that completely (if not subliminally) sneak into the listener's consciousness.

The dream-like elements are all in place: dense, rapturous, guitars, strategically placed and often delicate drums, tight rhythmic pulses, and distant, angelic vocals. Hypnotic in every sense, tracks such as "In a Different Place," and "Vapour Trail" wash over you like a cool blue wave. Do yourself a favor and take this ride.

I sold my domestic copy of "Nowhere" to get this, and it seems to be widely available now in my area. The album is one of the best ever, even going back to the 60s, the remastering makes a huge difference for the better on my very high end Linn-Proac system, and the inclusion of the "Today Forever" EP tracks is not just a bonus; the EP is so good they're like manna from heaven. Along with the recent Slowdive reissues (with all their EP's on bonus discs), you should buy this before you pay your next electric bill or go grocery shopping.

Is this a masterpiece? Not really. Is is great? Yes. Ride was the most overtly pop of the shoegazer bands- they wrapped their strong 1960s-like pop base with a blanket of great guitar squelches and noisy soundscapes.

However, just because it is "pop" doesn't mean it is bad. They cut a good number of strong tunes like my favorite song of the album- Vapour Trail. It is worth getting the album just for that classic song.

Fellow shoegazer band My Bloody Valentine arguably created one of the most supreme examples of shoegazing and noisy popular music in general- the album Loveless. The band Slowdive created the album Souvlaki, which is far more arty, electronic, and subtle than anything Ride would ever create.

However, this is one of the better Shoegazing albums and thus deserves attention from anyone with even a passing interest in the weirder side of the pop spectrum. It is both accessible and fun to listen to.

First put out in 1990, as this was the band's first of (looks like) five CD's they released. Considered to be good British shoegazing rock. Think I remember seeing a video of them on the old Alternative MTV Sunday night show. Tracks I was most taken with were "Kaleidoscope", the rather uplifting "Polar Bear" and the uptempo "Vapour Trail". Also liked "Taste" with it's pure pop element intact.Well done.Line-up:Andy Bell and Mark Gardener-guitar&vocals,Steve Queralt-bass and Loz Colbert-drums.Should appeal to fans of My Bloody Valentine,Sundial,Flying Saucer Attack and possibly Oasis.

9 years ago I purchased this album during the height of the whole "shoegazing" scene. This album is pretty yet dark, catchy yet dissonant, droning and powerful. It is a must buy for any serious music fan looking to break away from the same old same old. Of course for Ride.....it was all downhill from here :(

I apologize to all the ride fans out there but this is the only full ride album worth a damn. This album is all that. After this album it gets progressively worse, and worse, and yes even worse. I can't stop musing about what happened to all the promise of these innovative young shoe gazers. The only thing I can think of is that they stopped gazing at there shoes and looked somewhere else.