First impressions stay with you. Your reviewer's first encounter with RIDE was a memorable one: watching these four pale'n'interesting home counties boys wow an overcrowded subterranean Liverpool club with the Boo Radleys' Martin Carr bleating in my ear about how they were already "ripping off" the Radleys, who were actually yet to have a record out. Indeed, even though my precarious vantage point allowed me to see only the blur of sticks, hair and cymbals that was drummer Loz Colbert in full flight most of the time, I could tell straight off there was something important going down here.
Despite the distance between then and now, as soon as you press play to cue in "Like A Daydream" from RIDE'S glorious "Waves (BBC Sessions)", the same euphoric rush cascades over you. Lest we forget, RIDE were rightly regarded as the first truly exciting British band of the 1990s, epitomised everything successful about Alan MacGee's burgeoning Creation label prior to Oasis' arrival and - yeah - were the first bona fide, credible indie superstars. Not for nothing did Noel Gallagher jump at the chance of getting Andy Bell ensconced in Oasis when he was at a loose end.
RIDE'S legacy gained a critical reappraisal with the release of the 3CD Box set and its' compact "OX4 - Best Of" compilation back in the autumn of 2001, but now "Waves" is a wholly essential alumnus and can only add to the simple fact that Oxford's original (and for me, still) finest were 2000 light years ahead of the 'shoegazers' they were inevitably lumped in with at the time. I mean - can you really imagine Chapterhouse or The Catherine Wheel (who? - quite) inspiring such excitement with a retrospective nowadays? Don't make me laugh.
So, down to brass tacks. "Waves" compiles 17 tracks, from two Peel Sessions (both 1990), two Mark Goodier outings (1992-93) and a surprisingly searing live effort from a 1994 Mark Radcliffe show, when the band themselves would admit they were pulling in different directions.
It's dynamite. The first Peel session (February 1990) mainlines on raw energy. "Like A Daydream" kicks off - lean, punky and vocally better-defined. "Dreams Burn Down" flies in the slipstream; monolithic and yearning with Loz's desolate drums sounding like they were recorded in a cave. Then there's "Perfect Time": frazzled and splendid with that gorgeously lysergic middle section where it slows and gets all Velvets-y, before rushing on its' run. Hell, even the long-forgotten Pale Saints cover "Sight Of You" allows them to sign off heroically.
Back in the Maida Vale studios that same September, with the excitement over their debut album "Nowhere" about to break, the sense of youthful wonder's still in place. There's an arguably definitive "All I Can See", a dark and desperate thrash through Mark Gardener's "Decay" and an aromatically hypnotic take of Dead Can Dance's "Severance" for good measure.
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Travel on a little and Ride returned to the airwaves with Mark "a ittle square" Goodier's show, parading three tunes from their "Going Blank Again" peak. "Time Of Her Time" and the see-sawing riffs of "Not Fazed" find Gardener and Bell's guitars meshing supernaturally, while the white-hot melody torrents of "Mouse Trap" still send more shivers down the spine than is probably healthy. Ride were on top of their game at this point and bloody knew it.
The album then skips ahead to February '93 and the pivotal Mark Goodier session after Ride's first lengthy sabbatical. This is the one finding them showcasing material from the critic-splitting "Carnival Of Light" album, and while Bell slightly ruefully admits "this session officially marks the beginning of our self-indulgent rock star period," there's still fascinating stuff here, not least a harder, exploratory "Birdman" and the definitive "Crown Of Creation", with more space and some natty organ. The palette was broadening, though it wasn't to the taste of many, not least with the coming of Britpop.
So it's bizarre that it's the Mark Radcliffe session from July '94 that steals the thunder. Exploding into life with the Who-style fizzbomb of "Let's Get Lost", it plays us out with Gardener's lovely, Byrds-y "1000 Miles" and a snappier "I Don't Know Where It Comes From", without the silly Stones-bothering school choir. The fact that these songs are dispatched with the attack of their overlooked final album "Tarantula" proves Ride were always a diamond-hard rock'n'roll combo even when the chips were down.
"Waves" is an inspired set and leaves you in no doubt of the srength and depth of Ride's material. I mean, there's no "Chelsea Girl," "Drive Blind", "Seagull," "Leave Them All Behind," "Twisterella," "Unfamiliar", "Magical Spring" or "Black Nite Crash" and you still find yourself in raptures.
Ride remain one of the seriously essential British combos of the past twenty years and "Waves" can only further enhance their burgeoning posthumous legacy. This writer never stopped loving them and on hearing this you'll understand exactly why you kept faith too.
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