It’s been thirteen years since Belong released their sparkling diamond Common Era. In that time, the shadow of that record grew out into the same edgeless infinity of its droning guitarscapes. That record melded the sounds of iconic records together like a dream you have while listening to a shoegaze and post punk playlist on shuffle. And in the midst of that dream, it Inceptioned itself into an iconic record itself.

It’s a tough record to follow, no matter the gap. But greater records have been followed up with longer gaps and have turned out fine. And while Common Era often felt like a sound study on Loveless, there’s a similar sort of parallel between m b v and Reminisce IX.

Allow me to belabor the metaphor a bit before I get to this record. Loveless is perhaps the longest shadow a record has ever cast. It is the textbook. It is the Platonic ideal. It is the Gospel. And despite how close various imitators have gotten—and they’ve gotten close—there will never be another album like Loveless.

Except maybe m b v, but it even has glaring differences with its predecessor. It is a sort of yin to its yang. And even though you could put each record on shuffle and fool most casual fans, each record has a distinct tint. m b v often feels like it’s casting a sideways glance, seeing what other directions they might have gone if certain threads had been followed instead, even as the songs sound very close to the record before it.

And it is in this sort of parallel relationship that Realistic IX feels similar to m b v. Before Common Era, Belong mostly created truly ambient drone that wasn’t concerned with things like lyrics or chord changes or rhythm, or even proper songs. Then on Common Era, they released what was—by their standards—essentially a pop record. Though the lyrics be mostly indiscernible, there are verses and choruses and drum beats.

Realistic IX has plenty of moments like this, but it’s easily distracted. They wander off into experiments in EDM, techno, noise, and their homeland of drone, only to return to center with another shoegazy pop song. But as the record continues, that center comes unraveled bit by bit, until the closing track “AM/PM” stretches it beyond the event horizon. The duo loops the same drone & drum machine figure across a near eight-minute runtime, which is more than enough time for it to become transcendent.

All things considered, Reminisce IX has just as much of a smeared technicolor to it as Common Era. Everything is coated with a thick reverb that makes everything sound distant and blown out, as if you were listening to it being played full blast from your neighbor’s house. It’s not quite as immediate the classic, but we’ll see how its own reputation grows with time.