release date: Jan. 1985
format: digital (1990 reissue)
[album rate: 3 / 5] [2,77]
producer: My Bloody Valentine
label: Dossier Records - nationality: Ireland
Track highlights: 3. "Don't Cramp My Style" - 5. "The Love Gang" - 6. "Inferno"
Studio mini-album debut by Irish band My Bloody Valentine originally released on Tycoon Records is a 7 track album at just above 25 minutes playing time. From the formation (1983) to this point the band had been through a phase with ever-changing band members with only Kevin Shields and drummer Colm Ó Cíosóig as the only consistent members. Here the band consist of vocalist David Conway, Kevin Shields on guitar, bass and backing vocals, Tina Durkin on keyboards, and drummer Colm Ó Cíosóig (credited as Colm Cusack). Stylistically, this is close to the music of the contemporary Scottish band Jesus and Mary Chain with a distinct psychobilly inspiration with distorted guitars and a close bond to gothic rock and post-punk.
I only came to listen to this album after all their successive three albums, and it really is a completely different style as to what the band has become known and famous for. Vocalist Dave Conway sounds like Dave Vanian of The Damned, and the music comes out as a clone of The Damned, The Cure, Ramones of the mid-80s and The Cramps. One could also argue that there's a bond to the debut album by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds. Anyway, it's almost hard to accept as an album by My Bloody Valentine, but this is their (and Shields') formative sound despite the band's own failing attempts in finding a suitable new name when they would later change their style and again replace band formation. I do think this is much more in the style of what Robert Smith referred to when he pointed to My Bloody Valentine as an upcoming band to look out for, as this has more in common with the roots of The Cure than what Shields and Co. would produce in the early 90s, although, that would be of much more significance.
[ allmusic.com 2 / 5 stars ]
