Ride – This Is Not A Safe Place – Album Review
by Killian Laher

This Is Not A Safe Place is Ride’s second album since reforming, and their sixth overall.  Here, the band don’t stray too far away from what they are good at, that is shoegazey tracks, jangly tracks and poppy tunes.  After the instrumental R.I.D.E., they kick into gear with some A-grade guitar jangle on Future Love.  Clouds of Saint Marie is in a similar vein, with a kind of bland ‘na na na na’ chorus, it’s a bit forgetttable really.  Tracks like Repetition and Jump Jet are almost danceable, like slices of late 80’s indie-pop, the latter featuring some buried, fuzzy guitars midway through.

Kill Switch hits harder than anything else here, an I Am The Resurrection-drumbeat backed by buzzing guitars.  Better is the blissful, head back slump of Eternal Recurrence, with soft vocals and a guitar line you just want to sink into.  15 Minutes is like a very poppy Sonic Youth (the Thurston Moore side of them).  They even try a couple of ballads with Dial Up and Shadows Behind The Sun and the results aren’t bad at all.  In This Room goes for a big epic finale and largely pulls it off, the band showing good dynamics dialling the intensity back and forth.

A lot of this is unremarkable really, but pretty pleasant with it.  For big fans of Ride, this is well up to scratch with any of their other albums.  As for everyone else?  Nobody will be offended by this, it’s very listenable if not particularly memorable.

Track List –

01. R.I.D.E.
02. Future Love
03. Repetition
04. Kill Switch
05. Clouds of Saint Marie
06. Eternal Recurrence
07. 15 Minutes
08. Jump Jet
09. Dial Up
10. End Game
11. Shadows Behind the Sun
12. In This Room

Future Love