It is comically easy to make a passable shoegaze song with the right pedals and proper settings, but writing a great shoegaze song remains fiendishly difficult. Slowdive remain masters at this evanescent art. “Kisses,” the lead single to their upcoming album Everything Is Alive, and their first new music since 2017’s self-titled, is more delicate than anything on that album, as well as more openly romantic. Neil Halstead and Rachel Goswell sing hazily about the prospect of a fresh start—“Maybe there’s a car there/Driving away from here/Taking all the ghosts, the hurt”—crooning the words “kisses/born desert sun” on the hook, although it sounds more like “kisses under the sun.” As their voices swirl creamily together, the invitation sounds as rejuvenating and full of promise as the open sky.
