Interplay

 

Yesterday Ride released their seventh album after a longer break. I tried not to set my expectations too high for this record, as Andy Bell's last releases were more than above average. And with this basic attitude, I was not disappointed. Certainly not a milestone in the history of music, but an album that will certainly appear in many annual best lists for this year. In their new songs, Ride move away more and more from the classic sea of guitars and reverberating sound of their earlier albums and seem to have discovered Tears For Fears and Talk Talk for themselves without losing their roots. In the case of Ride, it means that a band has brought together all their influences and experiences and packed them into varied, dense songs, so that "Interplay" adds playful aspects to the hypnotic melodies and guitars and synth elements, psychedelic folk, mystical games and electronic beats run through the songs. An album in which escapism, longing and melancholy flow just as much as perseverance, cohesion and energy swirl.