Twenty-two years may have passed since My Bloody Valentine last released an album (1991’s Loveless) but the band have not lost their ability to whip music critics into a frenzy. Writing for The Telegraph, Bernadette McNulty comments that the strangest thing about reviewing a MBV album (entitled mbv) in 2013 isn’t the fact that there’s been 22 years of silence from the band but the fact that - in order to review it ahead of its release – she’s listening to the music via digital files. My Bloody Valentine are one of those bands that almost embody the allure of vinyl (and fear not, MBV devotees, the album is available to purchase on vinyl) and a the bewilderment of a digital MBV experience becomes the focal point of McNulty’s review.

Dudley Colley’s blog post, republished by Huffington Post, approaches the album with trepidation yet finds, with some degree of surprise, that it’s actually rather good. “I'm loath to even describe much of the rest of the album, simply because every listen is leaving me a little more in awe, and I don't want to try and pin it down yet… like the LP just falls into place at the beginning, it similarly just falls out of place at the end.”

Our own reviewer, Jordan Dowling gave the new release an impressive 8/10. In comparison to its most recent predecessor, Dowling writes “Inevitably with such a diverse palette the cohesion of Loveless is forsaken, but mbv is all the better for it. It is not necessarily a stronger record than Loveless, but it is certainly better than what Loveless Mk II would have been.” The message is clear, then; mbv is well worth your pennies, just make sure you splash out for the vinyl, for a true MBV experience.