Originally released 33 years ago this week, loveless is the second studio LP from My Bloody Valentine and it is nothing short of an era-defining masterpiece.

Following a decade of early line up changes and slow evolution, mbv truly announced themselves in the loudest possible way with the brilliant 1989 LP, Isn’t Anything on Creation records; a critical smash and an album that placed them as the leading lights of the fledgling ‘shoegazing’ scene. Across the following three years, the quartet of Bilinda Butcher, Kevin Shields, Deb Googe and Colm Ó Cíosóig recorded at nineteen different studios to the cost of something like half a million pounds as they worked tirelessly to achieve their magnum opus.

Unlike lost classics (most notably The Beach Boys’ Smile), the ends did justify the means with loveless, an obsessive level of perfectionism that took them to the very edge of the precipice, but ultimately delivered one of the most influential albums of all time.
The shoegaze movement is hazy in its specific chronology, but many of its key architects were deeply soaked in psychedelia and retro tones. One of loveless’ most notable features is that it didn’t sound so much like any of its contemporaries and was instead the sound of the future. These days, a lot of things sound quite a bit like mbv, and loveless in particular, but on its release in the unbelievably fruitful 1991, it was such a remarkable outlier. Largely recorded in mono, the guitar tones are just incredible, waves of sound that crash across the sonic vista. Whereas many of their peers would master guitar pedals (hence ‘shoegaze’), loveless is primarily about technique, with Kevin Shields utilising the tremolo arm on his guitar to create that evocative washed out sound. As Q magazine wrote at the time, it “amounts to a virtual reinvention of the guitar”. Another interesting note is that a lot of the drums on loveless were built from samples of tracks performed by drummer Colm Ó Cíosóig, which was mostly a logistical requirement, but mbv were inspired also by hip hop production team The Bomb Squad’s work with Public Enemy. Every second is meticulously crafted.
A spectral and androgynous flow of vocals combined with out-of-body amplification, loveless is a masterwork of studio construction and exploration. God only knows how many times we’ve listened to this album over the years, but the sensation it creates every time is totally unrivalled by any other album, and still so vitally vibrant on each and every playback.

An album of unmatched sonic experience and an utterly unique masterpiece.

Photograph: Martyn Goodacre / Getty. On stage, 1990.