My Bloody Valentine's third album may be released this week. After two decades of making fans wait, Kevin Shields teased fans at a London gig on Sunday night, saying the LP may be out "in two or three days".
Shields dropped the bombshell at the Electric in Brixton, after a member of the audience asked for news. My Bloody Valentine had already played a new song at the beginning of the show; the band's setlist referred to it as Rough Song.
Although the follow-up to Loveless has been anticipated since 1991, the latest round of excitement began in 2008, when Shields said that the reunited My Bloody Valentine would record a new album. Progress has been slow and secretive, but it does really seem to be happening. "I think with this [new] record, people who like us will immediately connect with something," Shields told NME in November. "Some people think it's stranger than Loveless. I don't." In mid-December, My Bloody Valentine's Facebook page was updated with a message: "We finished mastering the new album!"
Although Shields' "two or three days" announcement suggests he is planning to release the album through the My Bloody Valentine website, there's little doubt that a physical version will also be available. A vinyl edition is "ready to go", according to Sky News producer Peter Hoskins, and Shields has previously discussed the importance of having a physical artefact. "It's going to come out on vinyl, with the CD as a secondary thing in the vinyl," he said last year. "You could just put it on a website or something, but when something seems to have a soul it's nice to give it a soul, which is to put it in a physical format."
My Bloody Valentine will return to the UK for three shows in March.
