Interplay

What cannot be contested is the way the album oozes with a confidence and sensibility that suggests its creators know this might just be the finest collection of songs they’ve released since their debut, Nowhere, back in 1990.

Song after song, Interplay is the sound four people acting on one shared instinct, and it feels like sunshine beaming on skin.

It’s their most adult album yet, and it suits them.

Overall: troubled, unflinching, but tuneful and triumphant. [May 2024, p.82]

Here [on "Yesterday Is Only A Song"] and on the best tunes of Interplay, Ride feel wonderfully, unexpectedly, younger than yesterday. [Apr 2024, p.36]

The collective clarity of mind on cuts such as “Monaco” keeps them focused and to the point. And while both the musicianship and the material In songs such as “Last Frontier” sound distinctly of that time in the mid to late Nineties when Ride pioneered what is now described as ‘shoegaze music,” it’s also pertinent to that period when it took courage to leave the home even as it was psychically suffocating to stay inside. No question there is a tangible confidence suffusing Interplay.

Ride seem to be embrace and move past their illustrious past, resulting in one of the most finessed, intriguing albums of their career to date.

In the end, Interplay feels like something of an incoherent mess if looked at with a microscope, but zoom a bit further out and it maintains enough of a “vibe” to feel at least somewhat cohesive, while also being a fun listen which should be even more enjoyable as the sun comes out and the temperature climbs.

Overall, Interplay is a record for fans of Ride—recommended on that basis. Newcomers to the group may want to dip their feet earlier in Ride’s catalogue, at least for starters.

Interplay is space rock as solid as it comes, but also deeply indebted to a millennial era about 20 years ago, which both shoegaze and alternative rock have left behind. A different kind of nostalgia, perhaps.

Interplay does just about enough to keep everyone happy: Shoegaze fans get a sonic-cathedral finale, while Ride follow their creative whims. Without many truly great songs, though, Ride might have been wise to play to their strengths, rather than coveting someone else’s.