Though shoegaze's initial run in the late 1980s and early '90s was brief, the style had more life in it than might have been expected. The same can be said about : They fell apart in the mid-'90s following the disappointingly straightforward alt-rock of their second album , but their reputation -- and the legacy of their first full-length -- grew thanks to the online music community and the availability of their work on streaming music platforms. During that time, the ways their 1992 debut album departed from the output of shoegaze's U.K. trailblazers aged remarkably well. 's songs were often more grounded and approachable than the work of ' counterparts across the pond, but they also incorporated folk, revved-up guitar pop, and screaming outbursts indebted to post-hardcore. When they made the album, they were young and impulsive enough to set aside the demos that scored them a label deal in favor of all-new songs. Thirty-one years later, the band -- members , , and and drummer -- don't try to recapture that spontaneity on . Instead, they deliver more of what their fans have come to love about their music. The clouds of distortion, vocal harmonies, and chugging beats of songs like "Scapa Flow," "The Price Was High," and "Another One Another" glide so smoothly, they feel like they've always been in the band's songbook. may know exactly what fans are expecting of them, but they also know themselves better than they did during the days. addresses how some things change and some stay the same as the years pass, and the band uses deja vu as skillfully as any of their effects pedals: "Hard Light"'s chiming guitars fade in like a returning memory, and on songs like this and "Gal," 's voices haven't aged a day. They muse on the tricks time plays on "Tarantula," with singing "And you feel like it's after school/In the afternoon/In the afterlife" accompanied a driving jangle that evokes 's "Don't Fear the Reaper" (which doesn't feel like such a stretch considering their covers of 's "Angel" and 's "Mandy"). The years away have only reaffirmed that no matter how blurry ' songs sound, their hearts are clearly on their collective sleeve. is a much mellower, tenderer album than their debut, and the serenity of "Lookout" and "T" -- where still sound perfect together when they sing "it was all more than enough" -- suggest they've making peace with the past rather than living in it. is far from 's rollercoaster ride, but its update of that album's spirit should please the fans made in the decades since their debut. ~ Heather Phares