The Return Of My Bloody Valentine

I might wait until it is available in the shops.

Actually, it's streaming on the Guardian's website.

Seems a bit ... nothing special, so far.

Just clicked this morning thinking 'why are there 400+ new posts?' there must be awesome lolz on this thread...to actually find a brand new rec is shocking.

Halfway through now..

i will be smoking a joint and listening to this later. wkd.

on 2nd listen now and its starting to sink in a bit. Loving it.

Yes very good. Feels like something old/something new.

hearing something new each time too

Loveless had shed loads of detail and hooks and songwriting that jumped at you from the first listen never mind the 10th.

Was listening to this and reading Ned's reaction piece. Like he says: no stopping of tracks, really sounds as if MBV really did this over a short period for the most part with perhaps finally working over some ideas they've spoken about in the past.

After who sees you I did find asking myself 'so what does pre-Isn't Anything? MBV material sounds like?'. As someone who loves all the EPs and the two albs I trusted people who said not to bother with anything before '87. WARNING SIGNS, right there.

Then as you move to the 2nd half you hear some more varied sonics and there are these 'we are not from mars really' vocal tics (which isn't bad at all, love the woooo in 'Only Tomorrow'), but it can't be said enough: this lacks enough hooks, songwriting and overload of detail.

Felt sad listening to Wonder 2: like here is the jungle stuff he talked about, and I wondered if he could have made more of it on more tracks (might have meant less Colm poor guy). It was always a myth anyway, nevertheless the gap adds a lot in your head and you have this fantasy that he went mad trying to re-create jungle (just as the thing was dying in the mid-90s) gave up and what you have is this remnant to mull over 15+ years later.

No track here besides Wonder 2 would make it as an MBV b-side from that period, never mind a track on Loveless.

Similarly I don't think any of this would break the top 10 on the 2013 tracks poll. Reckon the alb would make top 10 on enthusiasm I'm seeing here.

Having said all of this I'm glad that's all over with (lock thread etc). I do hope it was something recorded quickly to really just get it over with and that Shields et al. are on the first step to making something great in 18 months.

when does the backlash start?

Ned started it, not me.

When I hear the first massive chord of she found now, I keep on momentarily expecting it to break into a shoey cover of ABC's All Of My Heart.

I'll always remember where I was the day MBV started sounding like MBV: sitting on my couch listening to MBV.

Strongly suspect that this was mostly recorded in about 1996.

Do you think the title Only Tomorrow is callback to Only Shallow?

I wonder what the timeline is for the making of this album. was is it mostly recorded in 92, then tinkered with for 20 years? Or was it mostly recorded last year? post

Strongly suspect that this was mostly recorded in about 1996.

I would have thought recorded after they finished the comeback tour a few years back.

Of course it may have been recorded way back but it took a few years to master it post comeback tour

'nothing is' really sounds like Generation by Liturgy. Which is not really a problem, the idea wasn't invented by Liturgy, it's just like, halfbaked in comparison. Other than that, I like it after this first listen. Especially 'in another way' and 'wonder 2'. Will obviously have to listen to it not on youtube.

Can’t hear more than a very shallow similarity myself. Generation sounds like a rock band making rock music, with the progression in the playing, whereas 'Nothing As' sounds very much like a studio recording, sample-based, and using effects to produce textural changes over time, very similar to how you might make techno.

I seem to recall reading a paper somewhere on the topic of Liturgy inventing guitar and drums played in unison. Actually, it may have been by HHH himself.

Shields has already stated that this is stuff he started recording in the 90s.

I'm just finishing a record that I had started in the 90s. It was going to be, like, the next record. But it was already after the band had half split up, and me and Bilinda were left. Then we got back together.

http://pitchfork.com/features/interviews/8809-kevin-shields/

Well, you haven't heard the drummachine-backed live-version of Generation, then ;) I mean, it is the same sort of punk-minimalism, but yeah, Liturgy was far from the first to use that sound.

Sounds good with textural changes. Didn't catch many of those on youtube, but will listen on something better soon.

I've enjoyed my one listen so far, but as much as I wish this was released back when it should have been released - 15 years ago or so - I have a feeling it would have met the fate of so many intriguing follow-up albums from shoegaze acts, like those from Slowdive or Seefeel, and just vanished into the ether without so much as a wide release.

Much better than "Chinese Democracy," though.

mbv is kind of a brilliant title. It lets some of the air out of the signifier.

this record has 2 problems imo:
1. it sounds like Loveless part 2.(nothing new)
2. Loveless is better.

otherwise, great record

this record is not like Loveless.

So general feeling is disappointment? Everybody is disappointed because Kevin Shields copied Squarepusher instead of, like, Burial in the electronic track and that he copied himself instead of, like, someone who doesn't exist yet?

It's sort of meta-disappointment, maybe: it sounds exactly like most people probably expected it to sound, but not as mind-blowing as some likely wanted it to sound.

that is the disadvantage of the higher-as-fuck expectations 22 years after the monster that was Loveless

Bits of it sound like a consolidation of a post-loveless sound. In the 2nd half they're going for different things.

xxp = i think its the feeling that this was the stuff left in a cupboard somewhere and then Shields decided to dust it off, release to get rid of it.

Given what a torture Loveless was to make I don't blame him if this indeed was the case.

I'm just playing their Louis Amrstrong cover now.

(and maybe that's the reason Shields postpone the release till now)

xpost to me

I like these songs fine, but the world would not have been a worse place if they had been parceled out track by track over those two decades, on comps, soundtracks, etc.

Oh shit, Only Tomorrow, oh shit, oh shit. Well, yeah, how can it not be? But more.

it's kind of impossible to compare the two because the world into which Loveless entered wasn't one where people felt such intense pressure to form a shareable opinion during their first listen. obv this is some old man yells at cloud shit, horse isn't going back into the barn, but it's really so pronounced in a case like this - literally no-one could conceivably have had time to reflect in any seriousness about the record. It hasn't been out for 24 hours. The chief quality of a critical opinion is reflection, but there's not going to be any about this record, or any record ever again - we get first impressions, which are kinda...boring and predictable? imo

aerosmith = completely OTM. It's also one reason why I listened to it once before even writing one word about it, and if Doran hadn't given me the commission -- and hey, I volunteered for it when he sent out an email so I knew what I was doing -- I would probably still be taking it all in and thinking. As it is I already feel my opinions changing further, though still hesitant.

I don't think ppl on ILX talking about their first impressions precludes deeper listening & more thoughtful discussion later

I don't see the harm in sharing first reactions. It's interesting to see how people are reacting in the heat of initial discovery. When we go to the movies with friends, for instance, the conversation afterwards is about what we just saw.

aero = sitting on the fence man. its not even a pointy one, why bother.

np: Rising Sign - Hurricane #1 (My Bloody Valentine remix)

First listen track by tracks are nothing new. They're not reviews and they don't preclude 'proper' reviews later.

I don't think ppl on ILX talking about their first impressions precludes deeper listening & more thoughtful discussion later

it's not just ilx, I'm not singling out this thread - all over, if this is the sort of music you follow, there's a lot of I LISTENED WHILE LOOKING AT THE INTERNET AND HERE'S MY OPINION!! and of course it doesn't necessarily preclude deeper listening/more thoughtful discussions. it just does in practice. imo the first impression basically governs discussion of most things now, to the general detriment of discussion

It's interesting to see how people are reacting in the heat of initial discovery.

respectfully disagree

First listen track by tracks are nothing new

they're not new, but their prevalence is - it's very common now. They've always been awful it's true, when labels used to do listening parties there was never any review more wretched than the "I took notes while listening in a supervised environment here's what I thought!" - which is basically the entirety of the discourse now. this is related to my pointless rage at post-game interviews in which the interview asks the winning/losing QB/boxer/pitcher "how are you feeling right now?"

What's happening, User?

"which is basically the entirety of the discourse now"

What are you talking about?

I mean, is this just some, it were all fields round here in my day whinge, or is there actually something that can be done?

*dusts off writing pad after 25 years in cupboard*

One thing I was trying to do was have a cold but not first-time 'whoa' reaction to things rather than being shaped by what I'd already read -- now that I am reading some other thoughts, I'm getting further ways to regard a number of the songs, which is always good, but not the stopping point.

I can certainly say it is a nice album to fall asleep/wake up to.

There are loads of people - I can guarantee it - who will revel in pointing out what all the first listen track by tracks missed out when they come to writing their 'proper' reviews. And so it goes...

First listen track by tracks are nothing new
they're not new, but their prevalence is - it's very common now. They've always been awful it's true, when labels used to do listening parties there was never any review more wretched than the "I took notes while listening in a supervised environment here's what I thought!" - which is basically the entirety of the discourse now. this is related to my pointless rage at post-game interviews in which the interview asks the winning/losing QB/boxer/pitcher "how are you feeling right now?"

― available for sporting events (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Sunday, February 3, 2013 9:26 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

you should definitely watch some spurs games, or at least youtube gregg popovich's greatest courtside-reporter hits

I believe I said "this is some old man yells at clouds shit" in my initial post, Mr. Get-Mad-And-Defensive Doran, which is U.S. for "it were all fields round here." I don't suspect there's anything that can be done, no - I'm saying that the nature of discourse about music has entered into a very dull stage of "everybody weighs in as soon as possible," and while you're theoretically right that that doesn't preclude deeper discussions, it generally does in practice. Twere ever thus etc. I'm sure, as I say it's just so pronounced when there's a big release/event - which really ought to be the cases in which one would say, well, this is kind of an event, a lot to digest, my first impression probably isn't particularly valuable - but in fact the opposite occurs, a great deal of weight is put on the value of the first impression.

I have enough trouble coming up with year-end favorites, so much so that I stopped doing it entirely. Short of my top one or two records a given year, it's unlikely I'll return to one of my top 10 in the coming year, both because of old stuff I want to listen to and new stuff I want to listen to, which at least personally degrades/devalues the whole notion of a top 10, which is pretty arbitrary to begin with. I mean, there are albums I've been listening to for decades that I'm just starting to get a grip on.

That said, I have no real problem with flash reactions, as long as they're unattended by flash dismissals. But the press of time will (hopefully entertainingly) taint every review of this thing currently being rushed out of the gate. By necessity, every single one will either be rife with hedging, leaving the potential that this album will improve/degrade over time, or, more cynically, will competitively commit too firmly one way or the other.