“Sugar for the Pill”

“Sugar for the Pill”

From their masterpiece, Souvlaki, to what was supposed to be their last album, Pygmalion, ’90s shoegaze icons Slowdive have continually worked to distill their textured sound to its barest core. Twenty-two years after their last record, with a self-titled reunion album on the way, Slowdive seem determined to keep stripping back and evolving past the sound that once defined them.

While their comeback single, “Star Roving,” riffed on the band’s roots, “Sugar for the Pill” is something entirely different—a disarming heartbreak ballad led by singer Neil…