Ride announced yesterday that they are reforming and going on tour in 2015. The timing of it is excellent with Andy Bell’s commitments to Beady Eye completed now that the band is kaput. There’s been a parade of reformed shoegaze bands as all things 90’s have become chic in recent years. Swervedriver led the charge in 2008 followed by My Bloody Valentine in the same year. Chapterhouse briefly reformed in 2010 and Slowdive made their triumphant return just a few weeks ago. Choosing to get caught up in the excitement, I decided to revisit my favourite Ride record: Nowhere.

In addition to being the most sonically interesting record in their catalogue, Nowhere has the distinction of being the most consistent in terms of quality. Opening track Seagull nicks the riff from The Beatles’ Taxman and buries it under a mass of noise. Polar Bear combines fuzzy distortion, tremolo and huge amounts of feedback to create an intense listening experience. The slower paced Dreams Burn Down features a drumbeat reminiscent of Led Zeppelin’s version of When The Levee Breaks and icy cold guitar tones before building to a gigantic wall of sound. The best track, the beautiful Vapour Trail is left to the end as it dissolves into a sombre arrangement of strings.

Recent versions of Nowhere tack the Fall and Today Forever EPs onto the end, making a great album even better. The title track, Nowhere is thick, murky and despondent. It’s a great example of what Ride is capable of when they want to generate moody soundscapes. Unfamiliar is similarly dark, but upbeat. The big finale is Today is the big slow-build finale as it adds layer after layer before crushing the listener under a wall of reverb.

One of the best rock records *ever*, Nowhere belongs in every music fan’s collection.

Ride gets credited as one of those bands that didn’t achieve a ton of commercial success, but were immensely influential. I got into them about ten years ago and they were a huge inspiration for me and my band at the time. We even named one of our songs Riding Bears as a tribute.

It seems that Ride is seeing their legend grow as time passes by. It was a shame that they broke up so suddenly in 1996 (even though I wasn’t around to see it). I look forward to seeing them get their proper hero’s welcome when they come to Toronto next June.