The Return Of My Bloody Valentine

Like, "New You" is cool, it's definitely got a Stereolab vibe for a bit. Maybe it's not that adventurous of a song but it's just great to hear this band again. Check out how the guitar tremelo is perfectly lined up with the drums. Is there only one guitar there? I love the looping of her vocals at the end, especially that little bit at the end of the phrase where she sings "do do do" a little slower and it almost cuts off and then the loop just starts back up again. SO GREAT!

"Nothing Is" is fucking awesome. This is what i mean by experimental. They could have done with a more straight-ahead krautrock beat rather than this bizarre two-step which is kind of just whipping around the rhythm. Feel like I heard there was gonna be this cool noise band playing a house show and I show up and the lights are all off and everyone is standing around getting wasted in the dark watching as Kevin turns on a strobe light and maybe a noise TV and then starts punching up this stuff on a sampler.

I feel like the craft of making this record really shows throughout. It's as much about making the record as the record itself.

AV Club gives it an 'A' http://www.avclub.com/articles/my-bloody-valentine-mbv,91978/?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=feeds&utm_source=avclub_rss_daily

'A-'

About the chord progressions: I hear a lot of sus4 (and possibly 7sus4) type-chords, specifically New You, but also in a lot of the other songs.

On another note: loving this record from start to finish.

DJ at Bush Tetras show last night was playing this in between bands. Sounded fantastic loud.

"If anything, it takes the pulped angel corpse that is Loveless and feeds it back into the machine for one more spin around the macrocosm."

good album

Industrial skiffle otm, and I tried to think of something to say about the harmonic choices that wouldn't turn into "The Driest Post On ILM" but I couldn't so nm

I don't usually expect much from the AV club music crits, but that is a pretty decent review.

xps

beginning my first listen now

excited!

I was pretty disappointed in some of the production choices at first but it's grown on me. I'd still like to hear more rhythm section and a little less control in places. If "In Another Way" was a hair more chaotic it might be one of my songs of the year.
One thing I've noticed (and I think this was mentioned upthread - It's not a recording for headphones. It needs actual physical space for context. I have expensive in-ears I invested in (so it's not a frequency range thing) which were how I chose to listen to the record for most of yesterday, Only when I played it on speakers a few times did I really start to feel an affinity for it.

i dunno - I've been listening to it on a big, bulky pair of Sennheiser NC cans & it sounds pretty fucking great!

It could be personal taste. It sounds overly claustrophobic in headphones to me. All close mic'd / DI'd. There's not much air in the recording.

Yeah, i was sitting there with the headphone on and it sounded great. Then every so often i would be "Aw, he should have mixed the drums louder here" and then i realized this dude probably mixed this a hundred different ways and this end result is _the way it is supposed to sound_. The drums are supposed to slip into the distance. Stuff is supposed to blend together.

Maybe if "Loveless" came out now there would be complaints "WTF this guy doesn't know how to mix, how come i can't hear what they're singing?"

haha, pretty sure the reaction back in 1991 was similar

"the tape is warped!"

I like to imagine there are a few songs on here where there were 30+ tracks of guitar and this year he just decided to wipe them all and do the solo with a single noise guitar sound that has been perfected over 20 years.

this is wonderful so far

One thing I've noticed (and I think this was mentioned upthread - It's not a recording for headphones. It needs actual physical space for context

what? it sounds great on headphones!

I don't think sounding good on speakers means an album is not a recording for headphones

Yup, I've listened to this solely on headphones and I've no complaints at all.

last three tracks specifically benefit from headphones imo

It's not a recording for headphones. It needs actual physical space for context

http://sickmouthy.com/2013/02/04/repetition-is-a-form-of-change-my-bloody-valentine-loveless-and-what-to-make-of-mbv-after-less-than-48-hours/

I'm waiting with baited breath to play the CD through my proper speakers.

a little less control in places

yeah, super uptight for an album of noise-bliss

last three tracks specifically benefit from headphones imo

― ❏❐❑❒ (gr8080), Monday, February 4, 2013 8:03 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Absolutely. I can't imagine the last two sounding anywhere near as exciting through speakers as they do through headphones.

It sounds okay on big speakers but I wasn't really in a position to play it loudly enough. I suspect I'll get a lot more out of it on headphones.

if you your speakers properly placed, on stands, and sort of pointed in a V pattern towards the chair you're sitting it, you really do get a lot of those stereo effects you associate with headphones on speakers

i've only listened on headphones, it sounds great

this band is so weird to find a volume for, they have this odd effect of being quiet and super loud at the same time that i can't quite put in words

yeah i don't generally listen to music superloud on headphones but this morning i on my first listen i kept turning it up more and more

The first couple of times I played the album, it was on computer speakers, played at a low-to-moderate volume. A lot of it just seemed like ambient noise. Not an entirely bad thing, but headphones opened it up a lot for me.

Last night as I was listening loudly on headphones i was wondering maybe i should just put it on my speakers and turn it down really low.

i'm really fucking enjoying this...maybe even more than some because i like MBV but i don't have a ton invested in them other than, like they were a band that i heard in college and liked, like a lot of bands i thought were good and unique...

honest to god there's times i almost want to challops and say this is their best album but probably just because it's new

that will probably fade but overall this sounds like MBV and is good and i don't know how anyone could have possibly expected anything more

Yeah, this is as good as you could expect from any band after 22 years, especially a formerly gamechanging one.

I'm still wishing the phased/flanged drum loop right at the end of 'Wonder 2' went on for a bit longer!

i'm trying to ignore the 22 year thing when i listen to this, and just treat it as a third album by a band i like. the way it comes across as more loose, more fun than loveless really shines for me through that lens.

It definitely sounds like a helicopter taking off at the end. The only thing bad about this album is that it's too short.

i've seen the "it's too short" criticism a few times, which is funny because even though i agree, it's 45 minutes long!

really? it seems a lot shorter

i'm trying to ignore the 22 year thing when i listen to this

Me too, although I am interested in the effect this has. Thinking about what how the reception would've differed if it had come out in '94, '97, '05 and now.

But yes, if you think about the 22 years, it's hard to not want it to be 7.3x better than Loveless.

I do wonder if this will win over anyone who wasn't already converted. 2012 might be timely - a lot of dream pop is getting attention, a lot of the people who are listening to it weren't even alive when Loveless came out!

i like your review nick, especially as it has that preliminary stamp written all over it, it is amazingly modest of a critic admittig that he/she hasn't parsed the object of criticism yet and needs some more time. one small question concerning the review of "summer sun" and some other yo la tengo albums a couple of weeks ago. was there a reason you never published my comment or did the bot put it into the spam comment bin?

is that 909 percussion I’m hearing on ‘New You'? I think it might just be, especially the open hi-hats.

Agreed, this seems to fly by in a flash

I've listened to this like 5 times today so far.

just the play stats of the songs of the new album on the mbv youtube cannel, i am surprised about the clear lead of "she found now". it probably has to do with the faact that it is the fisr song, after that most people just seem to give up.

she found now 239.229
only toorrow 95.500
wonder 2 87.613
who sees you 82.964
is another way 50.834
new you 50.209
nothing is 39.763
is this and yes 37.238
if i am 37.137