Where do you go after love at first sight? The first time I listened to Blanket’s Modern Escapism, I was head over heels. I ordered a vinyl copy before I had even finished the second track, and I listened to it on repeat for weeks.

So when I saw news of the follow up, I rushed to preorder it. But after the first couple singles, I started to hesitate. They were poppier and more straightforward, with little remnant of the crushing heaviness that drew me in the first place. In fact, I even canceled my preorder at one point, only to re-preorder it at the next single.

And boy, am I glad I did. While it certainly has a directness and pop sensibility that contrasts with Modern Escapism, the record offers a holistic look at the wide expanse of 90s alt rock filtered through modern shoegaze.

While the band has spoken at length about the influence of bands like HUM, Ride, Swervedriver, and Cave In,  vocalist Bobby Pook has said that a big part of their goal was to write a Britpop record and make it heavy. That might seem surprising, until you remember how much overlap there was between early 90s shoegaze and Britpop. Pioneers like Lush and The Verve traded their fuzz pedals and psychedelia for the more stripped down charm of Britpop later in their career.

And while Blanket might be taking songwriting notes from Oasis and Blur, they’re not stripping anything down. This record is consistently noisy, with bursts of lava-hot lead guitar spiking up with the fury of Billy Corgan and James Iha’s Big Muffs. A couple guitar riffs even sound like they’re on loan from Weezer’s blue record. It’s still rooted in shoegaze, but it isn’t afraid to dabble in space rock, Britpop, grunge, and hardcore punk.

It is, admittedly, a bit of a jump from Modern Escapism. Much of the metallic influence is pared back. Tempos are quite a bit more urgent. The vocals are far more present, especially on tracks like “Euphoria.” “Loom” even gets pretty close to hardcore, inserting a breakdown and screamed vocals in the middle of an otherwise midtempo shoegaze track. The production is a bit more sophisticated, making liberal use of overdubs and multitracking to add sparkling acoustic guitars and dreamlike pianos under layers of spacious effects pedals.

But there’s still plenty of noisy wall-of-noise heaviness and dreamy textures to keep fans of the old record (namely, me) happy. In fact, since getting this record in the mail a couple days ago, I’m not sure I’ve put another disc on the turntable. I believe I’m on my sixth listen (second today) writing this now. And as catchy and noisy and heavy and lovely as these songs are, it will likely join Modern Escapism in my steady rotation.