Description
Pale Saints – In Ribbons – (30th Anniversary Re:Masters) – Double Clear Vinyl Records
Pressed on clear unpigmented vinyl.
30th Anniversary Re:Masters 2LPS
includes previously unavailable demos and brass band versions
Pale Saints’ In Ribbons is a radiant, restless shoegaze landmark—an album that wraps you in shimmering guitar haze while keeping a real pulse and bite at its core. Released in 1992 on 4AD and produced by Hugh Jones, it takes the band’s dream-pop sensibility and sharpens it into something more vivid and emotionally volatile: melodies that feel tender and bruised at the same time, rhythms that push forward with nervous energy, and layers of sound that glow, scrape, and dissolve like light through smoke. It’s lush without being soft-focus—every song is packed with detail, from chiming, chorus-soaked guitars to sudden surges of distortion, with the band constantly playing tension against release so the prettiness always has an edge.
A huge part of the album’s character is its sense of motion. Even when the guitars bloom into widescreen wash, the drums and bass keep the music grounded and propulsive, giving In Ribbons a kinetic feel that separates it from more purely “floating” shoegaze records. Vocals drift in and out like half-remembered thoughts—sometimes intimate and close, sometimes distant and ghosted—creating a dream-logic mood where emotions feel both immediate and slightly out of reach. The songs themselves are deceptively strong: hooks appear through repetition and atmosphere rather than obvious choruses, and the arrangements are built like architecture, stacking textures until they crest into moments of sudden openness that feel like a rush of air. Tracks such as “Throwing Back the Apple,” “Ordeal,” and the slow-blooming “A Thousand Stars Burst Open” capture that signature Pale Saints balance of beauty and unease, where sweetness and abrasion coexist in the same breath.
For listeners who love shoegaze and dream-pop with real structure and emotional depth—music that’s immersive but not passive—In Ribbons is essential. It’s the kind of album that can feel comforting one night and quietly unsettling the next, depending on your own “set and setting,” and it rewards repeat plays with new layers each time: a buried harmony, a guitar line shimmering behind the main chord, a rhythmic shift that changes the weight of a lyric. Whether you’re revisiting a classic or discovering Pale Saints for the first time, In Ribbons remains a gorgeous, hypnotic record that proves haze can still hit hard.
Brand new, never played and still sealed in the factory plastic
Track Listing
30th Anniversary Re:Masters
Throwing Back The Apple
Ordeal
Thread Of Light
Shell
There Is No Day
Hunted
Hair Shoes
Babymaker
Liquid
Neverending Night
Featherframe
A Thousand Stars Burst Open
Unreleased Sessions 1991-1992 (LP Demos)
Babymaker (Demo)
Kinky Love (Demo)
Hair Shoes (Demo)
CShell (Demo)
Hunted (Demo)
Featherframe (Demo)
Blue Flower (Demo)
Throwing Back The Apple (Demo)
Ordeal (Demo)
Untitled Instrumental (Demo)
Tintwistle Brass Band Versions
A Thousand Stars Burst Open (Brass Band Version)
A Revelation (Brass Band Version)
