In the early 1990s, Slowdive emerged from Reading’s underground scene with their shimmering guitars, hushed vocals, and dreamlike atmospheres. Alongside contemporaries like My Bloody Valentine and Ride, they helped define the shoegaze movement, offering a sound that was equal parts intimate and overwhelming. By the middle of the decade, however, Britpop had pushed shoegaze out of the spotlight, and Slowdive disbanded. For years, their music lived on as cult classics, traded on cassette tapes and whispered about in late-night conversations between dedicated fans.
Fast-forward to the present: the dream never really died. Decades later, Slowdive reunited, and in 2025 the original line-up of Neil Halstead, Rachel Goswell, Christian Savill, Nick Chaplin, and Simon Scott continues to captivate audiences worldwide with their lush, immersive sound. What is striking is how their music has aged, not as a nostalgic relic but as something timeless, speaking to new generations who find solace in its swirling textures and emotional resonance. Their shows are as transcendent as ever, filled with waves of sound that feel both intimate and cosmic.
Shoegaze, once dismissed as “the scene that celebrates itself”, has proven remarkably resilient. Its DNA now runs through indie rock, electronic, ambient, and even pop. Bands influenced by the genre’s ethos have sprouted worldwide, each taking the foundation of shimmering guitars and layering it with their own stories and aesthetics. The movement has become less about revival and more about evolution.
In 2025, that evolution takes a striking form with Wornsteps, a band at the forefront of shoegaze’s new wave. Led by multi-instrumentalist Whitlock, Wornsteps released their debut Music Caught in the Tape Loop earlier this year. The seven-track album is a haze of reverb and melody, balancing nostalgia with innovation. Where Slowdive once painted vast landscapes of sound, Wornsteps seem to lean into the claustrophobic, capturing the sensation of being caught in memory’s loops. The effect is beautiful, haunting, and slightly disorienting.
The title alone reflects their ethos: music not as a straight line, but as a loop where past and present collide. Each track drifts and swells, echoing the shoegaze tradition while carving its own path through modern anxieties and introspections. Whitlock’s vision is not about imitation. It is about translation. The spirit of shoegaze is there, but refracted through the lens of today’s fractured digital world.
For fans, the parallel is fascinating: Slowdive are the veterans who helped shape the sound, and Wornsteps are the newcomers carrying it forward. Together, they highlight how shoegaze thrives as both a living tradition and a constantly evolving form. Audiences can marvel at the genre’s continuity while embracing its reinvention.
There is something poetic in the fact that shoegaze, once written off, now feels more vital than ever. Its focus on immersion, on being lost in sound, speaks directly to the restless, overstimulated modern listener. As Slowdive continue to command stages worldwide and Wornsteps step into the light, the message is clear. Shoegaze was never a passing trend. It was, and still is, a world to get lost in.