After a little heard set of sunny debut EP’s MBV mastermind Kevin Shields discovered the joy of effects pedals and massive feedback and used them to push his surprisingly catchy melodies off-center, scuffing up his band’s songs and laying on thick sheets of guitar on albums like 1988’s wonderful Isn’t Anything and their towering 1991 classic Loveless.

Loveless found them with growing acclaim but a crippling inability to deliver on a follow-up, going Axl Rose one better by helping to bankrupt their record label in the elaborate process of endless studio recording and tinkering. The last time the band had played live together before this year was in 1992 and they had long dispersed to other projects by 1997 without any of the abandoned studio work seeing the light of day.

So out of the mists of time comes My Bloody Valentine and nothing much has changed except the ability to now headline a barn like New York’s Roseland two nights in a row as well as the All Tomorrow’s Parties festival upstate, and some extra dosh to spend on a big light show and projected images.

What needs to be said here is this band is freaking loud.

Earplugs were handed out at all the ticket collection points and woe to the badasses who tried to go it nude of ear. The H.R. Giger-like stacks of amps cantilevered over the front of the stage ominously forewarned what was to come. As the guitars cranked up and numerous tiny hipster chicks were lofted upon their boyfriend’s shoulders to see I thought, “Well, this isn’t all THAT loud…” and slid one earplug out only to quickly force it back in against the assault of sound.

The light show, which even Shields (who kicked out a light petulantly mid-show) thought was a bit overbearing for the space, and the sculpted slabs of guitar noise made each song into its own fascinating slow motion plane crash- flashes of light, groaning metal, whooshing air. Juxtaposed on this are the melody and choruses that seem as inevitable as gravity. Even their poppiest song, “Soon”, takes a jaunty Manchester beat and turns it into the sound of Happy Mondays being tortured by Al Pacino in Scarface (bathroom, chainsaw, ‘nuff said?)

Then of course came the climax, “You Made Me Realize” which devolves from mere song into what was 20 minutes (concert companion Joe Sofia was counting) of sheer rumbling, testicle jiggling, jowl flattening ever-shifting blare that can only be approximately described as the aural equivalent of tectonic plates making love. After awhile (5 minutes say?) you begin to hear notes that aren’t even there in amongst the shifting swirling monumental texture. There was no encore. The only thing they could have possibly followed up with would have been to come out and do “Have You Never Been Mellow” accompanied on a xylophone- merely as a palate cleanser.

This is all to say it was a very good show indeed. Regrets? As Joe Sofia pointed out, the vocals are mixed so low as to be practically non-existent. This isn’t a band anyone goes to for the words but it still felt like an element was getting a little short shrift. The crowd was made up of a high proportion of boorish louts – surprising for a Tuesday. There was one moron who clearly hadn’t been let out of his cage for several years and felt the need to get into a fight and mosh and generally do all sorts of things that were probably slightly more amusing when he was 15 years younger. Then there were the asinine shouts of “Play Louder” from some audience members which received a delicate middle finger from bassist Debbie Googe.

Still, a few boobs weren’t enough to ruin a fantastic show and some of the worst offenders were probably the same folks who inflicted permanent hearing damage on themselves so it all ends well.

Here’s a hint of what the twenty-minute section of “You Made Me Realize” sounded like – just a hint mind you:

…and here’s “When You Sleep” both from earlier this year:

Review by Noah Mallin

Standing at the t-shirt booth and checking out the road wares at the Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks show at the Bowery ballroom in New York last night, a swaying gentleman in a blazer and t-shirt breaks away from an intense negotiation with the fellow behind the table to swivel his head in my direction.

“Hey…” he says to me as his eyes focus behind his glasses, “I’ll buy you two shots of tequila at the bar if you buy me a t-shirt. All I have is a credit card.” I look at the placid guy working the shirt stand — he’s seen it all before. He shrugs his shoulders,” Cash only…” So it’s going to be that kind of a show.

Upstairs the band is clearly having monitor issues. Bassist Joanna Bolme keeps gesturing to the mixer to turn up her bass. Every time she waves her arms the guy behind me intones, “Gawd she’s hot.”

To be fair, the whole band is hot in every sense of the word: Sweaty in the humid funk of the sold out club, attractive sure, and blazing musically. Bolme has always been a sharp bass player, anchoring Malkmus’ twisty-turny songs. Malkmus himself is an ace guitarist changing tones from Allman-like lilting runs to heavy distorto sheets within a single tune, his voice squawking and cooing like dyspeptic songbird. Mike Clark hops around from guitar to keyboards seamlessly, his silver lame flashing.

The real deal last night was the newest member of The Jicks, drummer Janet Weiss. Weiss was the powerhouse behind the late Sleater-Kinney’s crunch and the whomping swing of the band Quasi which she formed with her ex-husband. Her unerring timing, Bonham-like attack, and turn-on-a-dime tempo shifts have freed Malkmus into even wilder guitar runs — The Jicks are finally the jam band of his dreams.

There’s a cry from the crowd for “Box Elder,” a song by Malkmus’ original band Pavement. Malkmus murmurs a succinct “No.” into the mic. Though Pavement began to take a more expansive view of 60′s rock archetypes as they soldiered on before splitting at the end of the 90s, it would have been hard to imagine them as the liquidy groovesters the Jicks were last night. A whole room full of achingly hip indie kidults were doing the deadhead shuffle-sway dance thing as jazzy riffs rang out from the guitar and the rhythm section locked in while Clark did a Ray Manzarek impression behind the keys. Yet, just when you think you have the band pegged as hippie revivalists they switch it up with a cover of hardcore band Fear’s “I Don’t Care About You.”

Most of the set was made up of new songs from Real Emotional Trash with nary a peep from Malkmus’ poppy first solo record. Highlights included a sweaty workout on “Baltimore”, a plaintive version of “Baby C’Mon” from the last album and a wrung out full-on Woodstock take on “Hopscotch Willie.”