This is one of the eps that came out between Isn't Anything and Loveless, and it shows the band well on the road towards that latter masterpiece. Kicks off with "Soon" - still amazing and a bit astonishing after all this time. Then the title track, vocal-less, cacophonous and dissonant, guitars smearing and howling in swathes. Next, "Don't Ask Why", a slow-burn, psychedelic-tinged lament which drifts along, gently buzzing and cotton wool-swaddled, for most of its running time before the loud buzzsaw guitars kick in near the end. And finally "Off Your Face", which is towards the upbeat, driving, more 'pop' end of the band's range, although in the absence of the heaviness or full-on guitar attack of its equivalents on Isn't Anything or the fully-realised lushness of the ones on Loveless, it comes off quite indie jangle (in a good way), a scene/sound which has certain consonances with the whole shoegazer thing, come to think of it. The latter two are noticeably less polished than anything which made it on to Loveless, and all three of the non-"Soon" cuts aren't as well-constructed as the Loveless stuff, but they're still good to listen to, and would be so, I think, even were it not for the enormous shadow cast by those epochal lps dropped by the band on either side of this ep.
I've been thinking lately that many of my old 'favourite' bands and artists are really only nominally so nowadays, in that I rarely listen to their records any more and aren't very sure that they'd speak to me if I did - the Smiths, the Cure, maybe even Joy Division and R.E.M. (though I definitely still rate New Adventures as a classic) - but I don't think that My Bloody Valentine will be consigned to that pile just yet...
