On this day in 1991: My Bloody Valentine released Loveless

My Bloody Valentine's Loveless – Classic Album Review – originally published in Hot Press in 2002

My Bloody Valentine were the band who gave rock hacks the chance to type the word "iridescent". A four-piece comprised of two Irishmen and two Englishwomen, they made one of the finest records of the 1980s, followed it up with one of the most revolutionary albums in the history of rock, and then voluntarily disappeared without trace, seemingly never to return.

To assess Loveless and its impact, a little context is necessary. The alternative rock landscape that MBV planted a bomb under in 1991 couldn’t have been more colourless or in need of change. The only vaguely "alternative" acts getting any chart action were the likes of Carter USM, The Wedding Present, Kingmaker and The Wonder Stuff, all busy peddling their inconsequential, pun-saturated indie/C&W pastiches to an inexplicably indiscriminatory audience.

Meanwhile, the likes of Slowdive, Curve, Moose and an embryonic Verve (no "The") were monopolising the pages of Britain’s pop inkies. These were the Shoegazers, the Scene That Celebrated Itself: bands with a curious predilection for being photographed in forests, and with no tricks up their sleeves except the ability to stamp down hard on their effects pedals while their vocalist murmured breathily over the ensuing din.

MBV stood apart, as distinct from their contemporaries as a gazelle among a herd of sheep. After a slew of inconsequential EPs in the mid-1980s, they’d served notice with a blindingly impressive debut album, 1988’s Isn’t Anything, which twisted rock into new shapes, full of odd little melodies and unexpected twists and turns. Sadly, few of their peers took any notice of what they were doing with the established form. So, in 1991, they had to do it all again – only better.

Loveless is a truly explosive record. The first sound you hear is that of four rapid-fire drumbeats heralding the opening riff of ‘Only Shallow’, a huge, glacial avalanche of noise erupting through the sneakers. For a supposed bunch of fey, whimsical, pale-and-interesting indie fops, MBV certainly packed more musical muscle than one might think.

But, although they weren’t afraid to kick out the jams, conversely they possessed a delicacy of touch that few, if any British bands, have since come close to. ‘I Only Said’ is a gorgeously exquisite piece of music, shot through with beautifully poignant little guitar motifs. One of MBV’s achievements on Loveless (and there were many) was to prove that sound-in-itself could be emotional, without recourse to the accompanying text (i.e. the lyrics, which are all but inaudible for most of the album).

One of the defining features of Loveless, and a source of irritation to some listeners, is band mainman Kevin Shields’ fondness for tuning all the guitars to odd settings. The first time I heard it, listening to it on a cassette, I became convinced that either my Walkman’s batteries were running down or the tape itself was damaged. Whatever they were playing at in the studio, they did some amazing things to the sound – sampling their own feedback, looping the basslines backwards, experimenting with weird, spindly drum-machine patterns. The best example is the climax of ‘What You Want’, an untypically raucous slab of guitar blur, which envelops itself in a maelstrom of endlessly looped flute noises.

The two key cuts are ‘To Here Knows When’ and ‘Soon’. The former track is deliberately as un-rock as you can get. There is no discernible riff or chord-sequence: for seven minutes, a teasing melody-line drifts in and out of earshot as the guitars billow noisily. It’s certainly the least human song on the album, for the band members relegate themselves to virtual invisibility: you can barely hear Bilinda’s vocal at all, and the bass and drums are a distant rumble in the background.

It’s somewhat ironic that ‘Soon’, by far the cleanest-sounding track on Loveless, should also be its most revolutionary. A loping drumbeat reminiscent of early Stone Roses is welded to an astonishingly fluid bassline pitched somewhere between lithe funk and dirty rock ‘n’ roll, while overhead, Shields’ vast sheets of squalling guitar pour down on the song like falling pieces of psychedelic debris. He himself handles the vocals, as he does on several other cuts, his voice artificially pitched and distorted to resemble that of a woman.

‘Soon’ is that rarest of things, a piece of thoroughly modern-sounding music that is at once accessible and totally unique.

The most annoying thing about My Bloody Valentine’s disappearance from sight is that, eight years ago, they were virtually the only band even attempting to do genuinely new things to, and with, rock music. They upped the stakes enormously on Loveless, and nobody was able to compete. Even today, no single band of any note has picked up the gauntlet they threw down in 1991.

All of which makes it all the more mystifying as to why they sank into anonymity the way they did during the subsequent decade. Perhaps they knew, deep down, that they’d never be able to surpass or even equal it.

ODD FACT: During the recording sessions, Shields is rumoured to have spent the best part of a fortnight sitting in a tent with his guitar, experimenting with the acoustics in an attempt to get the best sound out of his instrument.

WHAT THEY DID NEXT: In mid-’92, MBV parted acrimoniously with Creation, largely due to the time and money spent making Loveless. After signing to Island for a rumoured £250,000, the band slowly fell apart. "In retrospect," Shields says, "we had a totally overambitious plan to build our own studio and get the next record out by July 1993. It took a whole year before we had the studio thing sorted. By then all the momentum had gone."

STAR TRACK: ‘Soon’

ACE LYRIC LINE: None. Although most of the songs seem to be about sex in one form or another, it’s virtually impossible to decipher any of the lines sung by Shields and Bilinda Butcher, for their voices are generally obscured by the haze of guitars.

MAGIC MOMENT: The languid, curlicued riff that echoes throughout the entirety of ‘I Only Said’.

My Bloody Valentine play the 3Arena, Dublin on November 22.