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Dec 08, 2021 By Austin Saalman

Dropped on November 4, 1991, My Bloody Valentine’s sophomore effort Loveless arrived on the heels of musical landmarks Nevermind, Ten, Out of Time, and Gish, and also shared the UK release date of Bandwagonesque, placing the Irish-English alt rockers alongside their most distinguished peers. Perhaps in its own unique sense, Loveless outshines the best of them, despite its continued status as an underground classic.

An authoritative exercise in heavily textured dream pop and noise rock, Loveless opens with the ferocious “Only Shallow,” the album’s strongest cut, which snarls with deafening, fuzzed-out guitars juxtaposed with Bilinda Butcher’s characteristically inaudible vocals. Her inimitable style, drowned out beneath the ensuing noise, possesses a certain hazy softness, counterbalancing the group’s often raw and abrasive instrumentals.

More straightforward rockers “When You Sleep” and “What You Want” find the group most certainly competing with their American contemporaries, band leader Kevin Shields’ note-bending “glide guitar” technique as sharp as blades and the group’s collective attitude bearing equal edge. My Bloody Valentine’s uncanny ability to deconstruct rock’s frequently hyper-masculine pretensions is a virtue, another factor that sets them apart and contributes to the otherworldliness of their sound, Butcher and Shields layering their peculiar vocals to create a sense of somnolent androgyny. Even early on, the group was busy breaking down boundaries aesthetic, artistic, and moral, making Loveless an especially immortal classic of its genre.

Ultimately, however, among the album’s most affecting tracks are the downtempo “Sometimes,” which burns with a certain melancholic tenderness, and “Blown a Wish,” the latter’s drifting beauty passing through hallways of chaos upon a seraphic chorus. “To Here Knows When” and “Come in Alone” utilize the rough, feedback-saturated texture to form a dizzying atmosphere entirely unique to the group, a major aspect of their phenomenal abilities that placed them near the head of the ’90s alt rock table.

With one of the greatest band names of all time—Shields denies any prior familiarity with the 1981 Canadian slasher classic of the same name—My Bloody Valentine says it all in title, image, and sound. Loveless is bound to last, as even 30 years on, it still garners faithful respect from fans, journalists, and artists alike, many of whom have declared it one of rock’s finest releases. Listen to Loveless, find yourself lost deep within its pulsating scarlet fever dream, and upon awakening, you will most certainly return for more.

www.mybloodyvalentine.com

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