When I first experienced the transcendent bliss of Loveless, the record was grown-up, eighteen years having passed since its difficult birth. It sent me on a desperate, fruitless search to find something comparable, downloading anything described as “shoegaze” or “dream pop” …but Loveless proved frustratingly inimitable.

So it was with some trepidation that I purchased mbv, the band’s first album in twenty two years. I should have had more faith. The first two-thirds of mbv embrace the same wavy, ethereal haze of its predecessor; it was like a wading into the welcome embrace of liquid caramel, whether it was the astronomical orchestra of “Is This and Yes” or the warm, hypnotic blanket of “If I Am,” a track that could have been a lost recording from 1991.

The last three tracks of the album embrace an aggression lacking from the first half, whether it’s the scratchy wail of “In Another Way,” all yearning, snarling guitars raised to the heavens, or the repetitive punky pulse of “Nothing Is.” The closing song “Wonder 2,” a jet-engine roar draped over a rickety, organic drumbeat, is both my favourite song from the album and an exciting evolution of the classic My Bloody Valentine sound.