My Bloody Valentine-m.b.v.
Kevin Shields left our lives for all intents and purposes back in the early 90s. He would occasionally pop up on our radar in the form of threats of releasing a follow-up we never thought would actually appear. Shields also would leave the womb-like comfort of his studio for things like guest spots with the likes of Patti Smith. But no album would ever appear. Sometimes, the best gifts are those you wait years for. m.b.v. is that gift we’ve long waited for. If you’ve worshipped at the altar of Kevin Shields and My Bloody Valentine, you will not be disappointed with this offering 22 years in the making.
It’s the feeling of a warm blanket covering you from chin to toe. Your face still exposed to the chilled air, yet your body warms to the comfort of being in the womb again. ‘She Found Now’ is that blanket. It’s waves of lush distortion take you to a warm place. A place in the distant past, yet also a place not yet found. The warmth enraptures you until you’ve been lulled into an almost drugged daze, yet no narcotics are required for this buzz. ‘Only Tomorrow’ is layered with those fuzzy and unearthly guitars that have haunted our dreams and echoed in our headphones so much that they’ve become a part of us. Ghostly vocals wade the sonic waters, barely. Bilinda Butcher lays tethered whispers into the ribbon mic -like planting seeds of wishes and desires- knowing full well they will die in the soil.
Pop music never sounded this tortured and lovely.
‘Who Sees You’ is rock ‘n roll for the disenchanted. It’s the soundtrack to peeking behind the curtain and seeing the true mechanics of life itself. It’s learning how magic goes from something otherworldly to mere sleight-of-hand. Kevin Shields removes the wool from our eyes to show us fractured beauty. The ‘riff’ is a twisted melody, run through a pedal chain a mile long, and his voice remains not a centerpiece, yet another twisted melody within the DNA strand of what has been dubbed ‘shoegaze’. I call it rock ‘n roll, through the looking glass. ‘Is This and Yes’ is both the question and answer. The waiting period between wondering who you are and the moment of true identity. It’s pensive spirit is in the holding back. Wondering when the next wave of distortion will hit, and when it never does both relief and disappointment stare you in the eye. Bilinda Butcher delivers the news like a Siren calling from some non-existent plain. We gladly open our ears to her. ‘If I Am’ is another question hidden as a statement. That familiar shuffle rhythm just under a layer of melancholic guitar haze, Butcher giving us words not quite audible, as if singing the chord changes in sighs instead of words. Masking a sadness with beautiful haze, as if watching the last sunrise she’ll ever see. Here is a pop music; not in the sense of being “popular”, but in the sense that it makes your synapses pop in your brain. It charges and electrifies you. ‘New You’ is filling the airwaves and blaring through earbuds everywhere, in that alternate universe where things happen that are supposed to happen. In this universe, it will remain a certain fews beautiful little secret. Popular to those with truly open minds. Beautiful to those that have truly experienced beauty.
‘In Another Way’ wakes us from the lull of sleep. It makes those synapses pop once again, but in a different more dangerous way. Guitar lines, jagged and sharp, intertwine with a voice locked into a melody under the chaos. Then a synth and guitar create a noise somewhere between a bagpipe and car horn that temporarily pulls us from the manic pace. This is Kevin Shields’ bread and butter. This is what he does best: chaos and beauty, wrapped in a sonic structure that resembles a house of cards that you keep waiting to collapse but never does. ‘Nothing Is’ beats us into submission with what resembles jungle music looped and run through a Marshall stack at the volume of the Gods. ‘Wonder 2′ starts with a sound resembling an aircraft flying over, then underneath an organ appears and a breakbeat that sounds like it’s being run through a blown speaker. The androgynous vocals come in to speak to us, yet we can’t understand what they’re saying(of course). Soon, layers upon layers of guitars creep in and throw off our equilibrium. It sounds as if four different songs are playing at the same time, and we’re left to decide which one to concentrate on. It’s a fitting finale to a 22 years in-the-making album.
If Loveless never did anything for you then take heed, gentle listener. If you listened and never got what was so special about all that noise, then I don’t think m.b.v. is going to make a believer out of you. But if you hold My Bloody Valentine and their unique way of creating woozy, hazy and harsh sonic melancholy in very high regard, please come inside. If you let Loveless soak into your skin and your DNA and will always get chills whenever you hear songs like ‘To Hear Knows When’, ‘Come In Alone’ and ‘Sometimes’, then m.b.v. is the record you’ve been waiting for.
It’s definitely the record I’ve been waiting for.
9 out of 10
How about love/hate MBV fan that, for example, loved Loveless’s “Only Shallow” but hated “When You Sleep”? Is there enough variety for such listeners (and by “such listeners”, I mean me)?
I guess I’m really asking you to make my decision for me … or at least I’m sounding/reading that way.
I’d say this, if you like the songs you like enough on Loveless to go back to them and keep listening, then yes. I’d say the first half of the album is worth the price of admission. ‘New You’, ‘Only Tomorrow’, ‘Who Sees You’, and ‘If I Am’ are great ones to wet your whistle on.
But if you’re looking for a more straightforward listen that you don’t have to hit the skip button over the ‘difficult’ tracks, then I’d say just preview the record on
their Youtube channel for the cost of nothing but your time. Fortunately, the difficult tracks are the last three.
https://www.youtube.com/user/theofficialmbv
I’m a glutton for punishment. I like the sweet with the sour, and the occasional splash of acid on my face.
I LOVE your enthusiasm for this music. I think it’s such an amazing thing when music connects with people in some important way. Your description makes it sound like it reaches into your non-verbal core (sounds painful!) skipping all the shoulds/coulds/woulds and just letting you be.
I should have mentioned that before, but I was reading a verbal description of something visceral and hadn’t let my viscera properly hear it.
Music is that one area of my life where I can speak my mind freely and without hesitation. I think that lack of inhibition in what I say frees my inner Lester Bangs.
The other great thing is I write because I love writing, not because I’m getting paid to(at least not this review). If I had to review the new Beyonce, Nickelback, or Guided By Voices, you’d be reading a whole lot of “meh”.
I’m glad my love and enthusiasm for music comes through in my writing. Que viscera viscera.
Nice review. I’d like to say one thing, and perhaps you can relate to it — It’s really difficult to describe one’s love for “Loveless” without sounding like a pretentious snob. For me, the music engages the intellect but really stirs a more emotional/visceral response. And, quite frankly, it just feels good to crank up to 11. “mbv” is similar, in that it requires repeated listening and an approach not unlike viewing a modern art gallery. You may fall in love with it, or bristle at it, but either way you are forced to respond.
That is why, I believe, so many people like to call MBV overrated or pretentious. But for those of us whose hair stands on end when we listen to “Loveless” or — now, finallly — “mbv,” it’s a true love and not some way of accessorizing our “hipster cred.”
So yes — while it may sound like hyperbole, no other band has ever sounded like MBV and no other music has ever affected me in quite the same way. I can remember the precise moment I first heard “Loveless” in 1992, and have returned to it frequently in the 21 years since (the remasters, though, were a true gift!).
Dare I ask for yet another new MBV album? Pretty please?
Beautifully put, and I can completely relate.
Sometimes descriptions require more than just “It’s really cool. I like it a lot.” Sometimes certain music does something to you and you feel compelled to gush about it, regardless of what someone else might think of you after reading it. It’s like when I read something that’s been written about Springsteen, Dylan, or the Rolling Stones. The excitement in their words. Where they were the first time they listened to ‘Born To Run’ in its entirety, or ‘Blonde On Blonde’. I wasn’t moved by those artists like they were, but I can appreciate their prose and how deeply that music affected them. I feel the same way about Shields, Loveless, and now m.b.v.
It’s like the uncontrollable cry when finding out something terrible or joyous. There’s no thinking about it or talking it out. You let it out and that’s that.
I can totally relate.
And no, I don’t think it’s too much to ask for a new My Bloody Valentine album. That’s completely reasonable in my opinion. You listening, Kevin?