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Album review: My Bloody Valentine, m b v

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Album: m b v
Artist: My Bloody Valentine
(Pickpocket)
Three stars out of five

Twenty-two years ago, My Blood Valentine released one of the most influential albums of the ‘90s.

Loveless, with its red and pink cover of a blurry guitar, is the benchmark of a genre known as shoegaze — defined by layers of dreamy, almost incomprehensible vocals, droning riffs and fuzzy guitar effects, some of which sound like the occasional screams of table saws cutting through steel.

The Irish musicians, led by Kevin Shields, inspired a host of bands — including Ride, Curve, and more recently, Tame Impala — yet never capitalized much on their status as musical visionaries. My Bloody Valentine didn’t so much break up as peter out with their inability to finish another album, even amid rumours of hours of unreleased tunes. When Shields and his crew reunited in 2007, after a 10-year hiatus, some fans had given up hope (or basically forgot about the potential) for new material — but lo and behold, m b v appeared online Saturday, Feb. 2, causing quite the kerfuffle. Sites crashing, Twitter chirping, the usual.

If anything, Shields should be applauded for finally letting some his songs go — even though they aren’t the band’s best. Perhaps my expectations are too high or the foursome’s sound is too dated, but m b v feels more like a turgid ‘90s flashback than a vital and vibrant necessity — and I’d rather think of My Bloody Valentine as pioneers than sad-sack nostalgists. (Which might explain why the Pixies refuse to record new material, even nine years into their reunion.)

Despite the name of the band and the timing of m b v, this isn’t an album for a traditional Valentine’s Day of chocolate, flowers and wine. Shields and co-vocalist Bilinda Butcher won’t try to seduce you with cheesy lines about love — most of the time you won’t be able to figure out what they’re singing. Sighing is a much more accurate description — as the pair’s voices float like Kleenex on the album’s quiet, laconic opener, She Found Now.

Is This and Yes slowly twinkles with pulsing synths and Butcher’s chants — like a distant (and fading) star sending a message across the galaxy — while Nothing Is is nothing more than a three-and-a-half-minute chug of guitars and military-style drums. My Bloody Valentine needed 22 years to come up with this track? Yikes.

New You is much more successful, with its reverberating riffs, ascending melodies, Stone Roses-esque dance-like rhythms and tambourine shakes. In Another Way, with Butcher’s wispy vocals and throbbing swirls of fuzzy guitar squalls, tries to reach transcendental levels, but just falls short — largely due to its repetitiveness.

Apart from these two songs, however, there’s not much edge to the album. Just a sense of drifting, which is pleasant in and of itself, yet not enough to completely suck you in. You only bob along the surface, but never feel like the Soupe à la Shoegazer truly envelops you.

Of course, this album is getting gushing reviews from much of the music mafia — Pitchfork, Paste, Consequence of Sound, The A.V. Club, Drowned In Sound — and a few less favourable write-ups from Pop Matters and the Chicago Tribune. I want to fall head over heels with this album, really I do, but m b v is impossible to love more than Loveless.

— Sandra Sperounes, Edmonton Journal



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