Author: Joe Siegal
The world of rock music has changed drastically in the last 22 years, as influential bands have come and gone, styles have shifted, and the record industry of today has been revolutionized by digital downloads. However, for Irish band My Bloody Valentine, it’s almost as if early 90’s rock music has been frozen in time for two decades, waiting to re-emerge into a different moment in culture. The band’s new album, “m b v,” its first since 1991’s seminal “Loveless,” is both reminiscent of a past era of rock, while simultaneously managing to feel welcome in the current era.
As pioneers of what came to be known as “shoegaze” music, Kevin Shields and My Bloody Valentine became known in the late 1980s and early 1990s for making drowned-out, distorted and visceral music, relying heavily on reverb and the use of the guitar’s tremolo or “whammy” bar to create their distinct sound. Though they played throughout the 1980s and 90s, this marks just their third LP. It was released independently through the band’s website on a Saturday, February 2, dropping unexpectedly into 2013 as one of the year’s first high-profile albums.
“m b v” was recorded in two parts, first started in the mid-‘90s and then completed some time between the band’s reunion in 2007 and its release this month. Despite this disjointed recording process, the album is coherent and My Bloody Valentine’s hallmark sounds are still present.
The album’s opener “She Found Now” is an exploration of pulsating guitar and seemingly whispered, echoing vocals. After that, the album kicks into gear, as the next two tracks, “Only Tomorrow” and “Who Sees You,” blend heavier drums and guitar with the same vocal style and more conventional song structure, allowing the low end to overwhelm and envelop the song in deep, distorted textures.
“Is This and Yes” disrupts the progression, as synths and organs take over for guitar. The track feels like an interlude, but a great one at that, leading into what feels like the next chapter of the album.
The intricate production of the album is perhaps best exemplified by the next track, “If I Am,” one of the album’s best. It becomes a complex soundscape in which the thump of the drums becomes surrounded with winding echoes of synthesizer, guitar, and layers of lulling vocals.
From the first drum kick and blast of bass, it’s clear that “New You” is the most accessible and upbeat song on the album. The thumping bass line is the backbone to a melodic, poppy song that lets Butcher’s vocals build and rise to the forefront of the song.
The following track, “In Another Way,” brings guitar back to the forefront, combining layers of fuzzy, distorted guitar with a relentlessly pounding drum beat and a soaring synthesizer. “Nothing Is” serves as another interlude. Three and a half minutes of drum and guitar assault break up the sound progression of the album leading into its final track.
“Wonder 2” starts with the introduction of a looped sample that sounds similar to the whoosh of a jet engine. It starts as the song’s most prominent component, then folds into an experimental song that, while overwhelming and jarring, sees Shields crafting a song that stands out from the rest of the album. The track builds to a shrill, all-encompassing climax, then drops out everything but the drums and the jet sound in a final minute that sounds more like drum and bass music than rock.
As a highly anticipated album 22 years in the making, “m b v” has been met with much discussion of its place as a follow-up to “Loveless,” but it should be looked at as a progression, an album that is placed in a much different era of rock and that stands out from both its band’s previous work and from its current contemporaries.
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