hackbash

Shields down

Jul 7th, 2008 by handolio

Holy fucking crap.

I expect these words to be uttered by a legion of shell-shocked My Bloody Valentine fans today, as they nip out at lunch, pick up Kevin Shields‘ new album The Death of Patience, and lay back for a bit of easy listening.

I’ve just listened to the five minutes of No Good Deed Goes Unpunished, which is a recording of Shields jumping out of a plane with just a guitar and a Marshall stack to arrest his fall. Now I’m on to Nothing’s Never Ending, which is the same setup on the roof of a Eurostar passing under the Channel. Somewhere in the second half of the journey the train slows to negotiate a bunch of people on serious downers experimenting with freeform jazz, before mincing them cruelly into the high voltage lines.

Apparently, track three, is Shields doing what he does best: teaching aliens how to build a world-destroying death ray out of extreme white noise feedback.

Catholic Guilt is every worst Guitar Hero player locked in a room with just Philip Glass for inspiration, while the closer, Bless You, is a 10m 42s remix of a Tortoise soundcheck annihilated by the coming of The Four Horsemen.

Few people who’ve seen MBV live could forget the epic white noise meltdown in You Made Me Realise, but this is it condensed into an album. I’m seriously wondering if the entire thing is in fact Chris Morris playing a hideous practical joke on anyone who heard Shields’ MBV songs on the Lost in Translation soundtrack, and “quite liked his work”.

Jesus. That’ll learn ‘em.