Halstead croons, very seriously, very eerily, "The sunshine girl is sleeping/ She falls and dreams alone/ And me I am her dagger/ To numb to feel her pain". "Dagger", the album closer (the four songs listed after "Dagger" aren't on the original album, and thus feel like an epilogue to "Dagger"'s final chapter), uses goth-ish lyrics and haunting harmonies to score a shoegaze acoustic gem to rival "Sometimes". Souvlaki's stronger songs work on both ends of the spectrum, the first being the enormous, spacey feel of "When the Sun Hits" and "Alison", the other's being far more subtle, as the most obvious trek into minimalism also is arguably the best song on the album. The aural spine tingling of "When the Sun Hits" doesn't show up again on Souvlaki, but that doesn't stop most of the album from being pretty darn good.
The point is, you know it's emotional, but you don't know why. It's impossible to discern what the massive choir is saying, but what they're saying seems inconsequential, the same way what those massive dramatic-moment movie-choirs are saying is inconsequential. It's that strength that lends itself to songs like the ridiculously awesome "When the Sun Hits", in which Halstead and Goswell concot a mesmerizing melody, only to turn it heartwrenching when a choir appears for a few brief seconds but those seconds linger in your spine until the choir returns for a reprise. From this point, Halstead and Goswell get some of their own songs to work on, but undeniably, their greatest strength as an individual is the other person. Tells me she's just fine/ I guess she's out there somewhere." While this is going on, the guitars bleed high notes with an almost synthy feel, only adding to the dream-like effect Halstead and Goswell's reverb-heavy vocals create. The aforementioned "Alison" showcases that exact vocal feel, both melodically and lyrically, as Halstead and Goswell breathe in eachother's ears "Alison, I said we're sinking/ there's nothing here but that's okay/ Outside your room, your only sister's spinning/ but she lies. Vocalist/guitarist Neil Halstead's breezy sigh and female vocalist/guitarist Rachel Goswell's lazily angelic voice are two great tastes that taste great together, as Slowdive's best work comes when Halstead and Goswell sing together like two too-high-to-*** lovers. A lack of instrumental flare or any displays of musical virtuousity is noticeable throughout Souvlaki, leaving lots of pressure on the vocals to be damn impressive.
Upon first listen, it's clear to see that Slowdive aren't trying to win anyone over with anything other than their songwriting. It makes Souvlaki a more digestable album than Loveless at first, and maybe if you're just crazy enough, a better one. Both band's approaches to the genre are smart and beautiful in their own way, but whereas My Bloody Valentine was more experimental in approach, Slowdive truly made a pop album in verse-chorus-verse mentality. As their lovely critically acclaimed Souvlaki displays, Slowdive's approach towards Shoegaze is focused more on melody and song construction, whereas Loveless was prone to drift into blissful drones that while being very repetetive, were hypnotizingly beautiful. But let it be known Slowdive are not copies of My Bloody Valentine. Slowdive even borrows some of the elements that made My Bloody Valentine so terrific, such as a chick-and-dude vocal approach and maintaining a poppy style for each of their tracks. That monumental masterpiece still stands today as the only shoegaze album that mattered, and for good reason, as it's one of the undisputed classics of life. In all fairness, the acute level of success Slowdive were able to fashion for themselves could not have been possible without Loveless. Blending dreamy pop melodies with fuzzy tremolo guitar static, Slowdive is one of the greatest contenders for acknowledgement as "the shoegaze band that's not My Bloody Valentine". Pretty much right there, you have Slowdive's "Alison" off their 1993 shoegaze work of art, Souvlaki. Now imagine that hit was transposed into a musical puff of the cheeb. Review Summary: If you've listened to Loveless a lot and want more shoegaze, this is a pretty good album to get.
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