Despite falling all over themselves to praise Slowdive’s earliest releases, certain members of the British press — which had become fixated on Britpop — absolutely hated the shoegaze quintet’s sophomore album. Melody Maker’s Dave Simpson famously wrote that he “would rather drown choking in a bath full of porridge than ever listen to [Souvlaki] again” while NME’s John Mulvey called it “pretty, but unfulfilled.”

Slowdive, of course, would have the last laugh. Souvlaki contains some of their most beloved songs, like “Alison” and “Souvlaki Space Station.” Working with various producers and engineers, including ambient pioneer Brian Eno, Neil Halstead et al. polished the goth-y atmospherics of 1991’s Just for a Day to give songs like “40 Days” and “When the Sun Hits” a pop sensibility that only enhances the band’s gorgeous sonics. As for the aforementioned “Souvlaki Space Station,” it’s the band’s most celestially oriented song, replete with soaring, coruscating guitars and dub-influenced rhythms.

Of course, great art frequently emerges from great pain, and such is the case with Souvlaki. Halstead and Rachel Goswell had recently ended their relationship, and their bitterness appears in several places on the album, most notably on the stark acoustic ballad “Dagger,” which closes out the album with Halstead singing about the “sunshine girl” and his numbness to her pain. (“Dagger” also set the stage for Halstead and Goswell’s post-Slowdive work in Mojave 3.)

Halstead also grew increasingly interested in ambient and electronic music during Souvlaki’s recording, and that influence appears in several of the album’s B-sides, like “Moussaka Chaos” (which continues in a similar dubby vein as “Souvlaki Space Station”) and “In Mind,” which sends gauzy ambient textures and Goswell’s dreamy voice drifting over pulsing beats.