I picked up the remasters of My Bloody Valentine's early work as well as the new album, mbv. I love them all. I could go into detail about the recordings- I'm no audiophile expert but I can tell the difference from the originals, instead I'll relate my personal experiences with listening to them.

My first exposure to My Bloody Valentine was after hearing Feed me with your Kiss on college radio. I've never heard anything like it, sure there were some J&M Chain allusions but MBV were much more dissonant and much harder to grasp firmly. With Jesus & Mary Chain the hooks were already there- good old fashioned surf music or Phil Spector-inspired catchy hooks. There were none of these in MBV. You could go searching for them and maybe in time find them buried beneath the dense aural wall of sound production but they weren't really 'hooks' per sé. The 'hook' in an MBV song is like a light, silk gossamer tendril dangling out amidst the thick fog, visible but tantalizingly out of reach or too slippery/fleeting to get a firm grasp of.  It's funny to listen to their early jangly, poppy sounding EPs (Ecstasy & Wine) because that sounds  like an entirely different band compared to the more mature work from 1988-1991. I was in university at the time and had numerous friends & co-workers who absolutely hated MBV. They just never really 'got it' in the sense that difficult music takes time to immerse yourself into it. If you're patient, you will be rewarded and I certainly was. I owned Isn't Anything on cassette and it saw heavy use in my walkman wherever I went. I gobbled up anything I could find of theirs including the flexidisc for "Sugar" from Rockpool magazine, while awaiting the release of Loveless.

Loveless didn't disappoint.  I won't wax poetic about it here (there's plenty of that around) but I'll mention something that often gets overlooked in their sound; beautiful harmonized vocals. The vocal interplay between Kevin & Belinda was majestic at times. Not only soothing but often the brightest part of the melody embedded in the song. You can't listen to "what you want" without noticing this but too often people just stopped at the layered guitars. Bilinda's vocals often floated higher and higher (Don't ask Why) over Kevin's understated tone.

The latest album mbv, has been slighted by many critics & listeners but I have to say it's as good as either of the previous albums when listened on its own terms. The first 3 songs reference the first 2 albums (Isn't Anything in particular) in structure. The middle 3 showcase Bilinda's wonderful vocal melodies. There is an incredible song (In another Way) that starts out brutally but finds harmony in an almost bagpipe-wailing guitar layer that works its magic a third thru the song til the end.

I love this band, perhaps it's my affinity for ASMR videos and self-diagnosed synaesthesia that makes me find comfort and shape to their sound. If you are lucky enough to share the same feeling for them, consider it a blessing.