Album of the Week: Loveless

I know the internet has been waiting with collective bated breath, anticipating my next album review. Well world, here you are. This week's album is Loveless by My Bloody Valentine.

This album is a trip.

Seriously, unless you're a fan of post-rock or noise-rock or something similar, I can almost guarantee you've never heard anything like this before. It's a sound pretty much unlike any other, really more of a sonic dreamscape than anything else. I think I would characterize it as art music, rather than any sort of popular genre. Definitely part of its appeal is listening from an intellectual standpoint, figuring out what the hell the group is trying to do.

So what makes this so crazy, you may ask? Unlike most rock, My Bloody Valentine employs a constant sonic assault. There really is no discernible dynamic range, nor is there much diversity within the songs of different instrumentals. Add in the fact that their song formats just sort of go until they're done, they don't seem to have any sort of formal structure. Instead there's this cacophony of electric guitar, distortion, synthesizer, obscured vocals, and strangely rhythmic drumming. I mean, in reality, it is just bizarre. The music sounds so otherworldly, you can't even really believe that actual humans can wrest these sorts of sounds out of instruments.

Conversely though, it is absolutely brilliant.

I don't have any individual songs to really recommend, because everything blends together so perfectly. Well, I suppose I am partial to "Loomer" and "Sometimes." Those may be my two favourites. But this is a capital "A" Album in every sense of the word, and we all know how much I love Albums as opposed to albums. Meaning, this is a cohesive statement, and as such, it really is best to listen to it through, rather than nitpick it apart into 11 songs. That would just not do.

One intense part of their sound is how they have this sort of acoustic guitar thing going against what sounds like a wall of electric distortion. It's a really effective tactic, I think, keeping that ethereal distortion in the back with some rhythmic device that keeps it from sounding stagnant. Like I said before, it's probably unlike anything you've heard.

Many must know my fancy for the Icelandic post-rock band Sigur Rós. Who incidentally, I'm going to see in a week, but that's neither here nor there. They must have gotten some influence from My Bloody Valentine for sure, as they employ a lot of their tricks in terms of electric distortion. But it's a lot different. Where Sigur Rós employs almost a classical approach to the use of electric instruments, bowing guitars and other crazy stuff like that, My Bloody Valentine has a bit of a harder edged approach. In any case, I like it. A lot.

So there you go. Check out "Loveless," let me know what you think. Give it a bit of a chance though, it's kinda messed up. Like I said earlier, it's a trip.