100 favourite albums: # 13: Isn't Anything - My Bloody Valentine

When you wake (you’re still in a dream) – several girls galore – you never should – i can see it (but i can’t feel it) – the very titles of the songs which make up this head-spinningly hallucinatory album are ungraspable; hearing one of those evocative phrases murmured underneath the waves of sound which form the texture of Isn’t Anything is like wading through a dream and then happening, unexpectedly, upon an old, unreachable friend. “Soft As Snow” is the first song on this album, and at first glance, it seems an entirely incongruous title to open a record built on loud, often abrasive layers of guitar noise. But a closer inspection reveals just how apt a description it is for the album as a whole, for delicate, drifting melodies and half-melodies are dreamily interwoven into the noise-fabric of Isn’t Anything, and for all the heaviness of the album, the listener finally feels as if they are being immersed in a sea of something quite extraordinary, balanced between those two sets of poles: lightness and weight, darkness and light. - 27/2/03

Strip away the layers, and what Isn't Anything is, if I can put it this way, is an indie-rock album - but what an indie-rock album!

"Several Girls Galore" has pretty much always been my favourite, its ethereal vocal line threading through resoundingly bass-y drum beats and classic MBV shearing guitars; a true mini-epic, it's one of those songs that is absolutely perfect on its own terms. It's basically a pop song, but sounds like a thunderstorm...what a racket, but what genius. Elsewhere, they're equally good with foggily downbeat lullabys ("Lose My Breath", "No More Sorry"), full on noise-fests ("All I Need"), racing, punky numbers ("Sue Is Fine", "You Never Should") and almost jangly indie anthems ("Cupid Come") (need I say that most of the songs on Isn't Anything meet more than one of those descriptions?).

By turns or simultaneously pretty and cacophonous, delicate textures and melodies colliding with blaring noise and buzz-saw guitars, Isn't Anything is strikingly direct, even when the most obvious elements of its songs seem deliberately fashioned to obscure the usual trappings of rock music. As hard as it hits, its touch is delicate; it's got one hell of a kiss.