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$26.99 CD
$39.99 LP
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MY BLOODY VALENTINE
m b v
(MBV)
 "Who Sees You"
"New You"
Fans of My Bloody Valentine, and there are many of us, have been waiting for a follow-up to 1991's legend-making Loveless for more than two decades, with tales of false starts, scrapped albums, and Kevin Shields' relentless perfectionism now deeply engrained in the band's mythos. So much so that when Shields revealed to the NME last November that a new full-length was almost finished and its release was imminent, the response from most fans was unsurprisingly a skeptical shrug, until m b v suddenly appeared on the group's website for sale, and lo and behold, it was real! And there I was sitting in front of a computer on a Saturday night in early February, along with tens of thousands of others across the world, obsessively refreshing mybloodyvalentine.org, waiting for a chance to download a record that I had thought would never come. The overloaded server felt like a final joke from the band, but after a few hours I actually made it to the check-out page, and soon after album opener "She Found Now" whooshed from my speakers, revealing the instantly familiar swoon of Shields and Bilinda Butcher's bittersweet harmonies buried beneath rich, distorted waves of warbled, down-strummed guitars.
So much has changed in the almost 22 years since Loveless first appeared and left its mark on innumerable bands, producers and listeners with its lush, disorienting sonics and transcendental atmosphere. Countless sub-genres of music have come and gone, and the very way so much music is consumed now -- be it downloading to a computer or streaming on a pocket-sized iPhone -- would have seemed as mind-blowing as Loveless itself back in 1991. Yet that record's lasting influence is impossible to deny, and listening to m b v, it's as if no time has passed, and that this new album was reportedly finished from recordings that Shields had started in the '90s only adds to its prescience. From the immediate hazy dream-pop of "Only Tomorrow" and the tremolo- and shuffle beat-driven "New You," both songs sweetened by Butcher's sugary coos, to "Who Sees You" in which nose-dive guitars bring to mind the ethereal pummel of the band's classic "Only Shallow," Shields and Co. aren't reinventing the wheel, but they aren't exactly copying it either; the sparkling, kaleidoscopic textures of Loveless have been replaced by an altogether more organic otherworldliness. Elsewhere, guitars are completely shed for organ, electronics and sampled brass during "Is This Yes," recalling the surreal ear candy of Stereolab/High Llamas spin-off project Turn On, while the careening, vocal-less "Nothing Is" plays out like an exercise in proto-industrial minimalism. The track that follows, album closer "Wonder 2," is perhaps m b v's most thrilling moment, as dense, multi-layered harmonics come together atop a rapid drum-n-bass rhythm which eventually collapses into a jet engine-like swoosh.
This was surely a daunting record to complete, I mean, how does one follow up the iconic Loveless? Brush aside expectations, though, and what you have is a great new album from the band, that sounds like no one else but My Bloody Valentine -- and it's finally on Other Music's shelves. Whether it lives up to its interminable wait, literally a lifetime for some fans, is for you to decide, but I for one am ecstatic to have this almost unexpected gift from the group, and m b v has been on heavy rotation ever since.
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