I just want to be the first to call m b v the “indie Chinese Democracy” before Pitchfork says it 10 times in their review. I don’t actually view this as another Chinese Democracy at all, I just wanted to be the first to say it. After all, I was one of the first people in the entire world to listen to m b v.

First listen, I really like it. It sounds most similar to Loveless in my opinion, though Shields claimed it would sound more similar to Isn’t Anything. As the album goes on, it differentiates itself from Loveless more and more. m b v is a hell of a lot more softer and electronic than its predecessor in general, synthesizers being used a lot more (“Is This and Yes” doesn’t even have guitars). The drum n bass influence Kevin Shields mentioned shows up on “In Another Way” and “Nothing Is.” “Nothing Is” is the only instrumental on the album.

Completely contrary to Loveless‘s “Soon,” m b v goes out with a bang with “Wonder 2.” It is the fastest, heaviest song on the album other than the instrumental preceding it. It sounds like a fucking spaceship taking off.

I’d say this delivered. I’m gonna try and replace this review with something better after some more listens, but I’m not disappointed. Bilinda dominates the album vocally, but I doubt many will complain about that.

Current highlights are “Only Tomorrow,” “If I Am,” and “In Another Way.” Now if you’ll excuse me I have to go listen to this again.

Friendly Warning: The 320 kbs digital download available on the site is a transcode, probably because Kevin Shields is an old man who doesn’t know his computers. This means that the 320 rip gotten from the official site is lower in both filesize and quality of a 320 rip converted from the FLAC/WAV files that you can also buy from the site. If that’s something that bothers you, I’d recommend replacing your copy with an encoding someone converted from the FLACs. Hope this helps someone.

Friendly Reminder: Kevin Shields was not working solely on this album for the entire 22 years the band has been broken up. Why do people keep acting like this a 22 year-old work? It isn’t. They picked up directly where they left off all those years ago. Just listen to the song “Sugar,” which was the B-side of “Only Shallow:” drum loops, synthesizer-driven. It’s been stated several times m b v’s conception was because Kevin Shields decided some of the material the band scrapped was better than he thought it was. With all that in mind, m b v sounds like what anyone who has been following the band could reasonably expect. But everyone’s still entitled to their own opinion.