My Bloody Valentine - Isn't Anything (Album Review)

 

My Bloody Valentine - Isn’t Anything

(1988)

My copy: 2022 deluxe reissue by Domino and MBV Records.

Though My Bloody Valentine had existed in essence for nearly ten years, their debut full-length did not come until they were recruited by Creation Records on the back of a powerful live performance. Isn’t Anything explored the band’s obsession with sharp, layered noise - while retaining a clear affinity for punk/post-punk rhythms in spite of lethargic, vaguely androgynous vocal performances. 

The guitar almost totally distracts from the lewd, yearning lyrics of the feverish “Soft As Snow (But Warm Inside)” where the freshly acquired Bilinda Butcher harmonizes to bent, swooning melodies. The percussion switches from rigid mid-tempo pulses to toppling drills, or simple stripped-back accompaniments as with the dissonant lust of “Lose My Breath.” While Shields is more closely associated with production, his skill for melody stands out on tracks like “Cupid Come” where the writing is somewhat misrepresented by their then still somewhat lo-fi recording methods. “(When You Wake) You’re Still In A Dream” fully locks into the wailing, tremolo-crushed guitar sound as they rattle after Butcher’s contrastingly sweet harmonies. 

Their first true brush with the avant-garde comes in the haunting “No More Sorry,” which rejects standard musical form in favor of a cavernous stretch of layered strings and effects - attached only to unsteady bass and Butcher’s numb poetry. Herein lies Shield’s first real taste of unusual production, within such strikingly visceral sound. “All I Need” continues with an off-kilter heartbeat driving more splatter-paint wall-of-sound. The guitars, in all their weight, are capable of shifting the mood from heavenly chorus to horrifying unease on a moment’s notice. Returning to urgent post-punk, with the bass now groveling in distortion, “Feed Me With Your Kiss” trudges along in spite of a fairly uninspired vocal take - thrusting forward on the back of furious drum fills. 

The air-raid signal guitars that occasionally fly over “Sueisfine” maintain a balance of creativity before the goth-tinged romance of “Several Girls Galore.” Assertive tremolo leads “You Never Should” through more clever vocal melodies that could have benefitted from a heavier boost in production. “Nothing Much To Lose” is the best of the punk songs, breaking up dense, unruly rhythmic fills with soft, sweet verse sections that best predict the success of future songs like “Only Shallow” for their reliance on stark juxtapositions of brutality and fragility. “I Can See It (But I Can’t Feel It)” grooves in defiance of it’s atonal nature, relenting to conventional harmony only when it feels like giving in to the airy, comforting vocals and acoustic guitar.

Isn’t Anything does, at times, feel as though it only contains the traces of something monumental - like some great primordial spirit groping about in the dark in search of its true form. However we are spoiled by modernity, and spoiled by Loveless which has, in turn, somewhat overshadowed what was accomplished within Isn’t Anything. Bearing context in mind, Isn’t Anything did push a rather fantastic new avenue for rock music into a greater consciousness and it did so by refusing to turn down the noise. It is scarred somewhat by less-than-inspirational vocals and a steadfast commitment to certain genres, but Isn’t Anything is a formidable affirmation on the legitimacy of shoegazing music.