Proto-shoegaze band Loop return after 25 years as a quintessential British curiosity

With an increasing amount of 'gaze bands rebooting, it’s telling that while the likes of Ride, Slowdive, My Bloody Valentine and Jesus & Mary Chain are enjoying a level of success way beyond what they experienced first time, Loop are again pushed to one side, maybe too esoteric for people who are waiting for “Twisterella” or “Alison” at reunion gigs.

This four track EP represents the first recorded output from the band since 1990’s A Gilded Eternity, and since reforming in 2013. And despite the reformed Loop breaking up again back in 2014, and three other members joining guitarist/vocalist Robert Hampson, the four tracks here couldn’t come from any other band.

As soon as lead tracks “Precession” and “Aphelion” kick in, it becomes clear these are classic Loop sounds. Very little has changed ; there's more clarity in the production, but the layers of atmospheric doom which were synonymous with the band, and in abundance over all three albums, the background of drone fighting against propulsive percussion, are all in check.

The other two tracks almost signify a ‘Loop Mk.2’ sound. “Coma” is beatless and synth heavy, the one note sounds building up a musical tension which breaks out into nothing, while the seventeen minute “Radial” continues the synth drone theme until it cranks into a bass heavy krautrock frenzy.

Although the fanfare that will come with this release will continue the ongoing trend of Loop’s lack of ‘props’, and while it doesn’t scale the kind of indignant, but also lackadaisical kind of rage experienced on the likes of “Soundhead”, thirty years from their initial conception, these four numbers show that they continue to be an utterly essential British curiosity, with their ability to pummel the ears remaining unabated.