Some albums don’t need a follow up. They stand firmly upon their own two proverbial legs, singular icons that echo into eternity, transcending everything else the artist does.

Loveless is one of those albums. It cemented My Bloody Valentine’s legacy even without a follow up.

And for a long time, it finally felt like that follow up would never come. Then once it did, it was met with apprehension. After all, how do you follow up a record as sublime and transformative as Loveless? 

You almost don’t, actually.

In the years following Loveless (and Creation Records’ bankruptcy), Kevin Shields and Co. were signed by industry giants Island Records with a stunning £250,000 advance. The group used that money to build a custom studio and set to work.

But the pressure of writing a follow up to a perfect record seemed like it might be an unconquerable challenge. Shields battled writer’s block, technical problems, and meltdowns. In the late ’90s, the group reported sending several albums worth of material to Island, but besides two covers, nothing was released. In 1997, the group officially called it quits, and any hope for a new album was dashed.

Then in 2007, the group reunited to play a set at Coachella. Rumors began swirling that Shields and Bilinda Butcher were re-recording early EPs for special rereleases. Shields began teasing the release of a new record.

It was nothing new: he said similar things in an AOL chatroom in 1996. It seemed like the relentless babbling of a tortured genius He desperately wanted to release an album, but creating something worthy of following up their masterpiece was a daunting task.

So in late 2012 when he announced that it was finished and would be released “any day now,” many fans didn’t hold our breath. It was just more of the same. Then one fateful evening, the band posted a link to their Facebook page: preorders were live.

There were no singles to hear. No tracks to sample. And yet that night, I recognized that I was on the precipice of something remarkable. I pulled out my debit card and preordered the vinyl edition then and there. I don’t usually buy records blind (deaf?), but I trusted Kevin Shields’ perfectionism. If he felt like it was finally good enough to release, that was enough to reassure me that my purchase would not be in vain.

And that risk paid off. m b v not only avoids disappointment, but it offers a fresh vision of an act that many people felt was stuck in 1991.

Right out the gate, My Bloody Valentine makes it clear that they aren’t merely retreading old material, but are completely confident in their voice. All of the sonic flourishes from Loveless are here without feeling warmed over. m b v even looks beyond the hazy, pink-tinted palate of its predecessor to create something new.

Structurally, the record is organized in thirds. The first third establishes that yes, this is the same band that recorded the best shoegaze album ever, and they still got it. Any of the first tracks could have fit right on Loveless without feeling diminished. “She Found Now” lives in the same pensive heartbreak of “Sometimes.” “Only Tomorrow” and “Who Sees You” roar with the same blissful wall of guitar noise as tracks like “Come In Alone” and “When You Sleep.”

The second third is more poppier, calling back to dream pop bands like Stereolab and Cocteau Twins while retaining its own voice. “Is This And Yes” follows a slow swirling synth pattern that never quite resolves as Bilinda’s voice coos over it. “New You” marries their noise experiments with pop beats much like the transcendent “Soon” did on their last record.

But the final three tracks is where the group gets real wild. “In Another Way” rides an aggressive drum beat while the noise in the background gets more aggressive than ever. “Nothing Is” is more chaotic than anything they’ve done before, looping a brutal drum beat and guitar crashes relentlessly for  three and a half minutes. It feels out of place at first blush (and does not do anything to make you feel good about this record if it’s accidentally the first track you listen to, like it was for me). But it achieves the same sort of trance-like state that Shields has tried to put listeners into. As the track progresses, the way you hear the pattern shifts like finding shapes in the clouds. When the track subsides, it leaves a strange calm behind it.

The final track “Wonder 2” marries that chaos with the bliss of the group’s songcraft. A rapidfire drum rhythm, buried deep in a phaser effect, is paired with the glistening swells of guitar fuzz and Shields’ delicate voice. In many ways, the track feels like the eye of a hurricane: a strange tranquility surrounded by a threatening turbulence.

In a weird way, that metaphor feels a bit like it encapsulates My Bloody Valentine as well. They are a group mired in the chaos of label problems, recording issues, and the whims of the (mad?) genius of their leader. But the art they create is perhaps the most accurate aural record of pure bliss imaginable. And in that way, m b v is not just a great My Bloody Valentine record: it’s the most accurate.