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Rating: If "Isn't Anything" was an excellent album made of brilliant insights, splendid songs, and varied influences, "Loveless" is the sublimation of all this and much more. Technically, the introduction of technological instruments allows for an even greater development of sound volume. On the other hand, My Bloody Valentine prove themselves here as incisive as few other bands in history.
We are facing a completely new expressive code, which definitively breaks away from past examples. If before the group's directives were post-punk and psychedelia, now it's impossible to make significant distinctions. These 11 songs are an unbroken exploration of sound, in which walls of raw guitars surpass everything else and impose an acid vision of reality. Shoegaze, precisely. "Staring at shoes," meaning staying bent, focused only on playing one's guitar with as much feedback as possible, without worrying too much about the details. This album is exactly that, a huge accumulation of distortions, combined with the typically English melodic urgency and an unprecedented electronic framework.
"Only Shallow", the first track, immediately sets things straight. A whirlwind of guitars and electronic effects into which the dream sweetness of the vocals is inserted. The formula is immediately clear and perfect. The sonic blasts are even more incisive than before, the melodies more captivating.
"Loomer" is an electronic twilight; a flame burns and consumes the air, while snow falls gently.
"To Here Knows When" combines the typical candor of dream pop with extreme harshness of sounds. The melody is barely glimpsed; it's the sublimation of chaos, the true protagonist of the album, which progressively expands and leaves us in a sort of labyrinth.
Listening to "When You Sleep", one forgets all the clear melodies of the previous album, as it's so perfect and integrated into the musical context. Indeed, what's often most fascinating about this album are the electronic patterns that accompany the immense amount of noise.
"I Only Said" is one of the unreachably high points of all the '90s and the entire history of rock. A transcendence of pleasure. Music that makes you shiver, causes hallucinations, and warms the heart. The intertwining of noise and electronics reaches perfection here; a simple melodic theme emerges from the electric dust, soaring into the air with the grace of an eagle and insisting until it shatters our perceptions, immersing into the deepest recesses of the psyche, echoed by the distant, so faint and elusive singing.
These five songs exemplify the entire art of the band. 5 timeless masterpieces, that still sound futuristic today.
But the album continues with the charming "Come In Alone"; unfortunately, words are over. It's another journey between dream and materialism, in a fusion of poetry and tar, to say the least, modern.
"Sometimes" resumes the sounds of the second track; noise clouds darken the sky.
The dream pop references become evident in "Blown A Wish", which eases the tension and transforms it into hypnosis. "What You Want" is one of the driest and most marked moments.
The finale is entrusted to the 7 minutes of "Soon", which already leans toward new developments, closer to house than rock, another demonstration of how immense My Bloody Valentine were.
If the first album was fascinating, "Loveless" stuns with an unheard power and immediacy. Here lies the entire essence of rock. Violence and purity. Hypnosis and spontaneity. An album like this lays the foundations for the developments of rock and electronic music; but even the most popular music could have drawn from here with full hands. However, the failure of Shoegaze is evident to everyone; perhaps the band's ambitions were too high to be understood and appreciated by all. "Loveless" remains therefore a stunning and sterile leap forward. The innovative power was such as to cause the implosion of the genre itself.
What remains for us is a work of art like this album.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Only Shallow (04:19)
Sleep
Like pillow
No one there
Where
She won't care
Anywhere
Soft
As pillow
Touch her there
Where
She won't dare
Somewhere
Sweet
And mellow
Softer there
Feel
Like you grew
Stronger there
Speak
Your trouble
She's not square
Soft
Like her silk
Everywhere
Sleep
Like pillow
Comfort there
Where
She won't dare
Anywhere
Look
In mirror
She's not there
Where
She won't care
Somewhere
02 Loomer (02:40)
Tiptoe down
To the holy places
Where you going now
Don't turn around
Little girls
In their party dresses
Didn't like
Anything there
Pretty boys
With their sunshine faces
Carrying their
Heads down
Tiptoe down
To the lonely places
Where you going now
Don't turn around
04 To Here Knows When (05:33)
Kiss
Your fear
Your red button
Falls from my mouth
Slip
Your dress
Over your head
It's been so long
Move
On top
Because that way
You touch her too
Turn
Your head
Come back again
To here knows when
05 When You Sleep (04:13)
When You Sleep
When I look at you
Oh, I don't know what's (true)
Once in a while
And you make me laugh
And I'll see (you) tomorrow
And it won't be long
Once in a while
Then you take me down
Then you walk (away)
When you say 'I do'
Oh, I don't (believe) you
I can't forget it
__ ___
When you sleep tomorrow
And it won't be long
Once in a while
When you make me smile
07 Come In Alone (04:00)
Come in alone
You'll love
To let go
And I'll turn
You around
When your hopes
Gave me doubts
__ ____
Why I don't need
To believe
What you see
To look up
And around
You were gone
(Words came out)
To a sound
Feel
I'm alive
You will see
(Why I'm alive)
Felt like crying
Over her
I will go
To ____
___ f___ s___
08 Sometimes (05:21)
Close my eyes
Feel me now
I don't know how you could not love me now
You will know, with her feet down to the ground
Over there, and I want true love to grow
You can't hide, oh no, from the way I feel
Turn my head
Into sound
I don't know when I lay down on the ground
You will find the __ __ hurts to love
Never cared, and the world turned hearts to love
We will see, oh now, in a day or two
You will wait
See me go
I don't care, when you're head turned __ _ __
You will wait, when I turn my eyes around
Overhead when I hold you next to me
Overhead, to know the way I see
Close my eyes
Feel me now
I don't know, maybe you could not hurt me now
Here alone, when I feel down too
Over there, when I await true love for you
You can hide, oh now, the way I do
You can see, oh now, oh the way I do
09 Blown a Wish (03:38)
Midnight wish
Blow me a kiss
I'll blow one to you
Make like this
Try to pretend it's true
Show me all your favorite things
Show you all mine too
Make a wish
I'll give it all to you
Welcome to your promises
Welcome to mine too
Caught like this
I'll turn it in with you
Fall apart my bleeding heart
Nothing left to do
Once in love
I'll be the death of you
11 Soon (06:58)
Wake up
Don't fear
I want to
Love you
Yeah (doll of pain)
I let you get to me
Yeah yeah
Come back
Don't be
Afraid of me
Soon
That (I'll harm you)
Your eyes are blue
Blue jewels
Yeah yeah
Come back
Have faith
Someone like you
Can find the reason
Of what I did to you
Yeah yeah
Wake up
Don't fear
I want to
Love you
Yeah (doll of pain)
I let you get to me
Yeah yeah
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Other reviews
By jeremy
If Van Gogh had been a rocker, he would have sounded like this.
Melodies that tickle the unconscious, unlocking distant memories and unspoken desires.
By R13557436
Listening to this album is undoubtedly the greatest sensory and metaphysical experience a person can have.
Loveless is proof of the existence of the divine, a unique work that even escapes itself.
By joe strummer
All of My Bloody Valentine’s music is a perpetual clash between noise and beauty, between animalistic violence and divine sensitivity.
"Isn’t Anything" carries all the seeds that will bear fruit in 1991, yet it maintains its distinctive profile.
By theJOKE
If you think an album must be immediate, concise, and catchy... then don’t judge this rare unique jewel of the world.
MBV managed to imprint transposed and metaphysical images on a musical album.
By Taxirider
"Loveless should be appreciated in its entirety, like a hallucinated and disorienting suite that gently leads us into the recesses of our minds."
"An open door to another dimension... that’s what My Bloody Valentine were."
