Review: Loop – Array

Loop
Array

ATP Records
Street: 07.24
Loop = My Bloody Valentine + Hookworms + The Black Angels

There are few bands who can do what Loop do, but many who have taken up the challenge. Loop’s first bit of new music in 25 years picks up right after the ellipsis of their 1990 hiatus and makes a case for their un-fucking-touchable status. It’s shoegaze fuzz filtered through the deep hypnotic throb of kraut, blissed and bleeding ambient, and the mind-expanding headiness of Britain’s psychedelia, all packed into a four-song EP that warps and wraps each disparate influence into a powerful musical statement of total investment and way-too-cool aloofness. “Radial,” Array 1’s final song, is a 15-plus-minute barn-burner—a Psychocandy-era The Jesus & Mary Chain busted fuzz pedal—with Colin Newman’s post-Wire explorations into muscular krautrock supported with a bevy of electronics and good-ol’ arena-rock swagger. –Ryan Hall