IN REVIEW: My Bloody Valentine - "m b v"

With my longstanding love of weirdness and noise in my music, you'd assume that I've been a massive fan of My Bloody Valentine all this time, and that I was one of the millions who broke the internet last night trying to get in on the download frenzy that happened when they finally ended just over 21 years of anticipation with the release of their third album m b v.

I can't explain it, but this album (and, for the sake of consistency, this band) doesn't do anything for me. It's not offensively bad, but it just doesn't transcend like I'm sure countless other music bloggers are opining in their columns as we speak.

The majority of these nine songs are more exercises in sound structure and Pitchfork-bating pretentiousness than anything else; new you is the lone exception, a perfectly acceptable tune and welcome increase in tempo that mercifully pulls us out of the brown haze only 26 1/2 minutes in. The tempo picks up again with in another way, but there are so many guitar effects and layers of sound piled on top of the drums, they just kind of stay stuck in the background, buried under a cacophony of aimless "art".

Speaking of which, nothing is is comprised of almost four minutes of a second-or-less long loop repeating while rising in volume. And it's followed by album closer wonder 2, a backmasked and effects-heavy hard drugs jam that's devoid of pretty much any and all musical merit.

So, let's review; after a 21 year wait, My Bloody Valentine try to satisfy two decades' worth of anticipation with an album that spends its first five songs plodding through slow-to-mid tempo background music before throwing in one genuinely good song, and then wrapping it up with three clusterfuck noise experiments that don't really go anywhere.

So no, I wasn't a fan of My Bloody Valentine all this time, and they certainly haven't changed my mind. Which, I opined earlier, is crazy given my penchant for noisy and strange music. But, as I was writing this article, it kind of hit me.

I've liked music since I was a kid, but it didn't really effect me on an emotional level until... well, right around the time My Bloody Valentine's last album was released. Which means they've spent the entire length of time that I've cared deeply about music NOT making it. As I listen to m b v, I can't help but be reminded of the bands who've done what they're doing so much better. I'm talking about the kaleidoscopic noise of They Were Wrong So We Drowned, the hypnotic looping of Frances The Mute, the sonic restlessness of OK Computer. And the funny part is that Liars, The Mars Volta and, yes, Radiohead ALL released their ENTIRE discographies to this point in between My Bloody Valentine albums.

And I think this might be the crux of it for me; My Bloody Valentine's first two albums unquestionably left an impact on music. However, in the two decades plus since Loveless, music has soldiered on without them. Every Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Beck, Smashing Pumpkins, Everclear, Creed, Deftones, Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park, Third Eye Blind, Nickelback, The Strokes, Interpol, Liars, Arcade Fire, Brand New, Fall Out Boy, Arctic Monkeys, Maroon 5 and Skrillex has come (and, in some cases, gone) in My Bloody Valentine's absence.

They're kind of like the dad who left to buy cigarettes one day and ended up a drifter, shooting smack with bikers and jacking off businessmen for crumpled up ten dollar bills. Now he's back, all cold sores and prison tats, asking for forgiveness and maybe a place to crash until he gets back on his feet again. Oh, and a hundred bucks too if you don't mind because I just have to settle up this one last debt and I never have to go back to that life again. It's kind of sad, now that I think of it. But, don't have pity; they're trying to get your money, and they're playing on your nostalgia to do so.

February 2, 2013 • mbv/Domino

Highlights new you