Ride

Ride stand among the most essential originators of shoegaze, having shaped the genre during its initial emergence and then moved through successive stages defined by radical changes in style and broad genre exploration. Emerging at the start of the 1990s, the group brought a neo-psychedelic approach built on enormous distorted guitars and thunderous drumming yet anchored by clear melodic focus. British journalists labeled them shoegazers because of their reserved stage presence and attention to effects pedals, yet the Oxford four-piece distinguished themselves from contemporaries through exceptional songwriting and dynamic control. Throughout 1990 the quartet embodied that label during a highly productive stretch that yielded three early EPs plus the acclaimed full-length Nowhere, which reached number 11 on the U.K. album chart. Ride soon abandoned and distanced themselves from shoegaze on Going Blank Again (1992) and Carnival of Light (1994), both Top Ten U.K. albums that folded in power-pop and folk-rock elements while highlighting the vocal harmonies of Andy Bell and Mark Gardener. Internal friction led to Tarantula (1996) and a long separation during which the members pursued separate endeavors for more than twenty years. Following tentative early contacts, Ride reunited completely in the mid-2010s, touring and appearing at festivals before issuing Weather Diaries (2017) and This Is Not a Safe Place (2019), both of which returned them to high positions on the U.K. chart. In 2024 the band delivered Interplay, their seventh studio album.

Based in Oxford, England, Ride comprises guitarists and vocalists Andy Bell and Mark Gardener, bassist Steve Queralt, and drummer Loz Colbert. The musicians formed the group in 1988 while still in their late teens and quickly built a loyal audience with loud, high-energy concerts. Creation Records signed them in 1989, and the self-titled debut EP, fronted by “Chelsea Girl,” appeared the following January. Critics praised the Ride EP, which also entered the U.K. singles chart. Momentum continued in April with Play (containing “Like a Daydream”) and in September with Fall (featuring “Taste”), both reaching the lower thirties. That activity preceded the October release of Nowhere, the band’s first album, which peaked just outside the U.K. Top Ten partly on the strength of its closing wistful ballad “Vapour Trail.” No other act from Ride’s cohort evolved so substantially inside a single year.

After issuing the fourth EP Today Forever, Ride delivered Going Blank Again in March 1992. Lead single “Leave Them All Behind” reached the Top Ten, as did the album itself, yet the group took an extended hiatus after an unsatisfying U.S. tour during which their releases, like those of Creation labelmates My Bloody Valentine and Primal Scream, had been licensed to Sire. Ride resurfaced in June 1994 with Carnival of Light, a pronounced move toward folk-rock. More ominously, the record separated Bell’s compositions from Gardener’s. Disagreements between the two songwriters over stylistic direction intensified while recording the subsequent album. Once Tarantula was finished in August 1995, Gardener departed and Bell immediately followed; the band announced its dissolution in January 1996, and Tarantula appeared two months later without active promotion.

Over the next two decades the members scattered across numerous projects. Bell formed Hurricane #1, later joined Oasis as bassist, and continued with Liam Gallagher in Beady Eye. Gardener and Colbert briefly played in Animalhouse. Colbert performed with the Jesus and Mary Chain and Supergrass, while Gardener released a solo album in 2005 and spent the following decade working with various artists. Bell, Gardener, Queralt, and Colbert did convene once during this period, appearing in a Channel 4 documentary on Sonic Youth for which they improvised material on camera.

In 2014 Ride fully reunited and scheduled a month-long world tour for 2015 that included Primavera Sound. They also resumed studio work. Weather Diaries, their first album in twenty-one years, arrived in 2017 on Wichita Recordings. Produced by Erol Alkan and mixed by longtime associate Alan Moulder, the record included the singles “Charm Assault” and “Home Is a Feeling” and reached number 11 on the U.K. chart. Early the next year Ride issued the four-track EP Tomorrow’s Shore, drawn from the same sessions. Continuing with Alkan, Moulder, and Wichita, they completed This Is Not a Safe Place, released in August 2019 and becoming their third Top Ten U.K. album. In 2022 the band launched a reissue program that returned long-unavailable titles such as Nowhere and Going Blank Again to circulation on CD and limited-edition colored vinyl. The series also presented 4 EPs, a compilation assembling all material from the early Ride, Play, Fall, and Today Forever releases together for the first time.

For Interplay—their seventh studio album and third since reuniting—Ride merged their signature shoegaze guitar intensity with electronic pop textures and expansive melodicism drawn directly from 1980s synth-pop. The wide-ranging record appeared in March 2024.