Twisted, fuzzy, psychedelic pop: Slowdive, at the Liquid Room, reviewed

Rachel Goswell, one of Slowdive’s two singers, has cool hair. It is dyed half black and half white, and by the end of this show I had a feeling it might have been trying to tell us something. Slowdive broke up in 1995 having made three albums. They reunited in 2014 and have since made two more. Can we spot the join tonight between the two eras? I think we can.

When they first arrived on an independent music scene still subordinate to the critical whims of Melody Maker and NME, Slowdive were not exactly beloved. Back in the early 1990s they were more or less the whipping boys and girls of what was known as ‘shoegaze’. Woozy and dream-like, the ethereal vocals backed by a gauzy swoon of treated guitars, the aura of somewhat fey ennui and a diffident stage demeanour didn’t necessarily endear them to battle-hardened music scribes as the more exuberant Britpop hordes barrelled into view.