That laboriously perfected album—held responsible for Creation Records’ bankruptcy, as well as at least one label staffer’s nervous breakdown—remains a marvel of art and science. What was amazing was not that a quixotic millionaire like Creation boss Alan McGee could be persuaded to invest staggering resources in an ambitious young band’s dream. It was amazing that an album that cost so much and took so long could be so good.
The last thing you want to give someone who takes a long time to make art is a reputation as a legendary perfectionist. Post-Loveless, the world would hold Shields to the same punishing standards to which he held himself. Dropped by Creation in the early ’90s, MBV signed to Island, built a studio with a faulty mixing desk, and took a year to replace it, whereupon Shields had a meltdown. As Britpop boomed, he was smoking a lot of weed and listening to jungle on pirate radio; unaccountably, he complained, none of the agonizingly complex melodies meandering through his head were turning into songs. Still, he seemed to revel in alluding to new music that was always just around the corner.
The decades that passed without a follow-up earned the band plenty of lore and, for breaching their Island contract, at least one lawsuit. The masterpiece they finally released—in 2013, on a janky website that instantly crashed—is likely the greatest rock album ever to underwhelm nearly everyone who heard it. Part of the thrill of seeing them live in 2025 is hearing m b v’s seamless integration alongside the acknowledged classics.
“Only Tomorrow” is a case in point, even if they struggle to make it. “It’s the age thing, you know?” Shields, 62, sheepishly joked after two false starts. “It’s like, wuh, what?!” Wobbles aside, he seemed in the zone for the m b v highlight—tremolo gliding in and out of the abyss, soloing incendiary, a rare instance of rock triumphalism—until the rest of the band ended on a hard stop that a daydreamy Shields overshot. He riffed a quick mea culpa with an impromptu blast of “Blitzkrieg Bop,” before “Only Shallow” and “To Here Knows When” presented opposing pillars of the My Bloody Valentine experience. The former slingshots between harmony and hysteria; the latter petrifies its beauty under a haze of ashy gray powder. Both are equally extreme, made indelible by Butcher’s suffering sighs.
